Sensible feminist? What's THAT supposed to mean?

(Pre-preamble: It's been a while since I wrote this. And I've gotten a lot angrier since then. I'm still trying to be sensible, but if our society keeps dragging its heels on feminist issues (or in some cases, successfully rolling back our hard-won progress), it may not be too long before I just delete this whole section.)

Preamble: Why I'm a Feminist

I write erotica because I'm interested in sex, and someone who's interested in sex is usually going to be interested in general issues of sexuality. Now, as with most areas of human activity, appropriate sexuality boils down to two necessary qualities: decency and freedom. If you're missing either one of those qualities, you're almost certainly going to go wrong - sexually - because in sex, decency without freedom is abstinence, and freedom without decency is rape.

Once you believe in the importance of decency and freedom, you really can't be anything but a feminist. Feminism is nothing more than the belief that our society still needs to take measures to increase the standing of women until there is parity between male freedom and female freedom. Any quick look around will tell you we haven't achieved that yet.

"But wait," someone says at this point, "women aren't the only ones who experience unfair treatment. Men also have issues where - "

To that person I say, look, please get the chip off your shoulder. I'm talking about feminism, not about egalitarianism. I'm an egalitarian too; it's just a more hoity-toity word than I care to put in my blog header. (And I would hope to God no one needs me to put up a page explaining what "egalitarian" means.) Feminism is a distinct component of egalitarianism, and that's what I'm discussing right now. If a discussion of feminism makes you reflexively want to bring up some other component of egalitarianism, then I'd politely suggest that you may not be as much of an egalitarian as you think you are.

Amble: What I Mean by "Sensible Feminist"

A fair number of people will likely be made instantly suspicious by the phrase "sensible feminist." They will ask, "Why would he need to specify 'sensible?' Isn't feminism inherently sensible? What secret agenda does he have?" This reaction is indicative of the level of mistrust that exists between people who consider themselves feminists and basically everybody else. It's a mistrust that cuts both ways, and it's a mistrust that sometimes results in people making bad choices that exacerbate exactly the tensions we should be working to remedy.

Like it or not, a large chunk of the population thinks "feminist" is a bad word. By adding "sensible," I'm announcing that I'm not what they think I am. I'm also trying to serve as an example to my own side, and to discourage what I see as counterproductive behavior.

What kind of counterproductive behavior, you ask? Well, as an example, I once read an op-ed piece in which the writer said something very close to, "The opinions of white males about representation are irrelevant." The writer's point was that white males can't really understand the issue because they live in a bubble of privilege and never have to experience the marginalization that women and minorities have to put up with. There's plenty of truth in that idea. But the conceptual truth gave birth to a demonstrably false and needlessly provocative statement that could have only two major effects: to make like-minded individuals feel puffed up with righteousness, and to make large numbers of white men feel insulted.

Calling someone's opinion irrelevant is a barrier-building action. Moreover, almost no opinion on cultural representation is more relevant than that of white men. They're the ones who have the power we want to see more fairly distributed. They're the ones (mostly) making the decisions that result in overrepresentation of their own kind in all of our media and power structures. How could their opinion not be relevant? The presence of bad opinions among them fundamentally is the problem.

When we make antagonistic statements that contradict reality, we look like irrational extremists. We feed the propaganda that feminists are a bunch of man-hating loonies bent on destroying society as everyone knows it.

And we make enemies of potential friends.

Feminism is about change, not about chastisement. It is about validation, not vindication. And it is about bringing everyone up to the high ground, not merely occupying that high ground and throwing stones at anyone who doesn't see fit to join us there.

So one element of my sensible feminism is that it be devoid of hostility. Those who deserve our hostility will not be swayed by it, and those who do not deserve it will be alienated.

Another element of sensibility is avoiding overreaction. Wherever there are customs, organizations, and cultural norms that subvert or restrain women's rights, we need to work diligently to change those institutions. But we must also keep in mind that the presence of repression, misogyny, or exploitation within an institution does not inherently make the institution itself bad, any more than a spot of mold on a round of cheese means the whole block must be thrown out.

For me, a prominent example of overreaction is the strict opposition that some feminists take to pornography. Historically, the porn industry has been no shining beacon of female empowerment. Porn flicks and publications were made by men, for men, and the women involved were often (or even predominantly) treated quite badly. But the same is true of representative democracy as laid out by our Founding Fathers: made by men, for men, and deliberately restrictive of the rights and opportunities afforded to women. But representative democracy has a lot to offer, and so does pornography, regardless of the fact that both of them initially kept women downtrodden. In an egalitarian society where all people are treated with respect and permitted to freely express their thoughts, emotions, and sexuality, pornography should be both openly popular and unobjectionable. In a world where no one conceives of women as inferior, no one will have cause to perceive images of sexual activity as an exploitation of women.

In essence, then, a sensible feminist is one who attempts to self-identify in a manner that does not set off alarm bells, who avoids deliberate antagonism in favor of constructive engagement, and who takes care not to throw babies out with the bath-water.

I'll probably think up some other things that it means as time goes by, but for now, there you have it.

With all of that said, I am not telling you how to do feminism. There's a real argument to be made that  angry, righteous feminism is empowering to women, creates more energy than being diplomatic, raises the profile of feminism as a movement, and makes it clearer to men that women have very good reason to be pissed off at the way our culture treats them. I may reflexively shy away from the notion that it's okay to furiously lash out at ill-considered statements from people who are on the fence about feminism. But as a man, I have the luxury of taking a meeker route because I haven't had to bear most of the unconscionable behavior that women have to deal with on a regular basis. So please don't take any of this to mean that I feel I have the right to lecture anyone on the "right" way to be a feminist.