#catherine mackinnon

[mommy-issues-haver]

arguments against anti-porn feminism are always so fallacious and based on ignoring material reality. i think if you question porn and its normalization even briefly, it’s incredibly difficult to come to the conclusion that it is good and/or feminist.

porn advocates ignore the conditions of women in porn. oftentimes they don’t even mention it. they accuse anti-porn feminists of “collaborating” with the right-wing against porn and that both are against it for moral reasons. this idea of morality - an accusation that denigrates the material harm that porn caused - ignores how real the effects of porn are, on the viewers, on the performers, on wider society. then there is the idea that porn will be more representative of sex if women are creating it. this is just the same girlboss shit regurgitated for the porn industry. women who choose to be cops are no better than the men who do and the same is true for pornographers.

let’s be clear: the position of anti-porn feminists has never been that sex is disgusting or that sex on video is inherently immoral. it’s that porn is actively harmful to women. you can’t just ignore how porn has clearly created a culture that encourages violence against women during sex. a culture that says violence against women is ok. there is absolutely no context where it is ok. strangulation during sex is never safe and yet it is unbelievably common, even without consent!

another argument made by Carole Vance is that for every pornographic image, 1/3 of viewers will find it erotic, 1/3 will find it revolting, and 1/3 will find it funny. but this is so irrelevant it’s almost bizarre to mention it in this discussion. i don’t care if i find something erotic. i don’t care if something is erotic to me because i will never want to enjoy material created from the exploitation of other women. i don’t care if i find it obscene or not. that’s not the point. it isn’t a moral crusade against the obscene vs. the erotic. it’s a question of eliminating the exploitation of women, both those who perform in pornography and those who are affected by its societal impact (which is most of us).

if there were convincing arguments that address all these points, i’d be willing to listen to them. but if it comes down to pleasure is good, then there is no argument. these are real things affecting real people. we need to address this. anti-porn must become the mainstream ideology.

#radblr #radfem #radical feminist community #radical feminist safe #radical feminists please interact #radical feminst #radical feminists please touch #radical feminism #radical feminists do touch #radical feminist theory #radical feminists do interact #andrea dworkin #catherine mackinnon #mine

[androgynealienfemme]

the linchpin of the subordination of women, the impetus and structure of women’s gendered status as second class, is sexuality, socially gendered through sexualized misogyny. We are placed on the bottom of the gender hierarchy by the misogynistic meanings that male dominant societies create, project onto us, attribute to us, which, in my observation and analysis, center on women’s sexuality. This has nothing whatsoever to do with biology, which serves, however powerfully, as sexuality’s after-the-fact attributed naturalized rationalization and supposed ratification. Sexualized misogyny merges synergistically with myriad inequalities: it sucks up and incorporates age-based specifics, takes on every racialized and caste and class guise. In other words, I reject the “single-axis” notion argued by what is currently inaccurately being called “gender-critical feminism.”

[…]

Transgender feminist theorization and realization, emerging into view but begun long ago—in a brilliant literature from Sandy Stone to Julia Serano to Esperanza—embodies a politics of its own but also sheds new light on feminist politics. All this suggests to me that “woman” is a combination of sex and gender, such that sex can be a sufficient condition for being considered a woman but has never been a necessary one. Sufficient, because most women so assigned at birth do not affirmatively identify with all women and women’s interests, or even as women really (seeing oneself as part of any group with men in it has more dignity); many (even most) are not critical of male supremacy; but all are constrained to live women’s lives, whether they see it that way or not. They are our people.

Not necessary, because not only are trans women living women’s lives—often much the worst of that life—but the transgender women I know, anyway, embrace womanhood consciously, are far more woman-identified than a vast swath of the women assigned female at birth (so-called “natal women” sometimes) whom I also know, many of whom have been trying to escape womanhood their whole lives for real reasons, yet often defend rape of other women as just a bad night and disidentify with women in every possible way short of their own transition, which is a lot of trouble and takes real courage. Trans women are, politically, women. They are our people too.

[…]

I take away two overarching lessons from these thoughts in progress. One is that feminism has not yet sufficiently changed the social meaning of gender around us for everyone to be safe and free and equal in gender terms, no matter how strongly we have confronted it or expanded it or bent it or transcended it or worked to abolish it. A lot of people still think it is biologically based. This much is truly obvious. Naturalism, that gender flows from sex in the sense of chromosomes and genitals and reproductive biology and so on, still exercises dominion over the world we all live in. Two, the feminist anti-transgender position is built on and reinforces, rather than challenges, that ideology. The notion that gender is biologically based—the philosophical foundation common to male dominant society and anti-trans feminists—is core to the reason why trans people know with their lives that they have to change their bodies to live the gender of their identities. Trans people do not need to make or defend a progressive contribution to gender politics to be entitled to change the way they inhabit gender. But trans people, in addition to all else they do and are, highlight feminism’s success—gender’s arbitrariness and invidiousness was our analysis originally—and feminism’s failure, or better our incomplete project—as the world is still largely stuck in what feminists oppose and fight to change, and trans people are determined to escape.

Babe wake up new MacKinnon essay on trans rights and feminism just dropped!!

#Catherine MacKinnon #feminism #trans feminism #transgender #trans theory #feminist theory #trans inclusive radical feminism #trans rights #some things here I’m not in agreement with but like 95% of this is like !!!! yes!!! #transphobes don’t interact or I block immediately #what a banger !

[tedhugheshater]

That Catherine MacKinnon quote, "Male dominant society has defined women as a discrete biological group forever. If this was going to produce liberation, we'd be free." is such BULLSHIT. It's crazy how many don't see it. Male-dominated society has also 'defined' men as a discrete biological group forever, and men are still free. Literally, half a brain cell is needed to get to my point. Catherine has been such a disappointment in later years.

#catherine mackinnon #on gender #mine #methinks #if u haven't noticed I've got Grammarly now #radblr

[kittyit]

I'm reading Only Words by Catherine MacKinnon and I think we should make a bootleg audiobook of it. It's relatively short - 110 pages. It contains frank discussion of pornography & rape culture so it's a difficult read. But I think it's an essential feminist text that is a powerful addressing of porn as "free speech". As a free speech extremist, this book helped me address my cognitive dissonance to that question in an approachable way. The book has only 3 chapters, and usually approaching a project like this, I would say 1 woman per chapter, but I think I'll divide it more just because of the hard subject matter. And I think having more women's voices on this is also symbolically powerful. So if you have a reasonable quality mic setup, you are okay with reading about pornography, and you're interested in being involved, please message me an email where you can be reached.

#reading list #catherine mackinnon

[dwellordream]

"Women are not, in fact, subordinated or oppressed by our bodies. We do not need to be liberated from our chromosomes or our ovaries. It is core male-dominant ideology that attributes the source of women’s inequality to our nature, our biological sex, which for male dominance makes it inevitable, immutable, unchangeable, on us. As if our bodies, rather than male dominant social systems, do it to us. It is as if Black people’s melanin content is the cause of police violence against them, rather than the meaning police attribute to their appearance (racial markers in this instance) and the law and culture of impunity for their actions."

Catharine MacKinnon, "Exploring Transgender Law and Politics"

#catherine mackinnon #gender #word to the wise

[anarchistin]

Male dominant society has defined women as a discrete biological group forever. If this was going to produce liberation, we’d be free.

— Catharine MacKinnon

#gender #gender binary #queer liberation #feminism #catherine mackinnon #quote

[judeesill]

‘Yet a group of philosophers purporting feminism slide sloppily from “female sex” through “feminine gender” straight to “women” as if no move has been made,[4] eventually reverting to the dictionary: a woman is an “adult human female.”[5]’

where is ur goddess now, reactionaries

#unfortunately we cannot misinterpret our way to freedom #I have a couple of quibbles but largely she went off #catherine mackinnon

[laurellavenderhaze]

MacKinnon: “Discrimination against trans people is discrimination on the basis of sex, that is gender, the social meaning of sex. It does not, contrary to anti-trans self-identified feminists, endanger women or feminism.”

Professor Catherine A. MacKinnon is a trans inclusive radical feminist. This piece is well-worth a read.

#trans rights #feminism #trans inclusive radical feminism #catherine mackinnon

[realhankmccoy]

well, watching Glenda and Camille do downtown for the first time in decades has

helped with my self esteem... cuz damn, I like what I am at 43 a lot better than what that woman was at 46 that day

realised that her main value definitely is in erudition and education -- knowing 'la petite mort' goes back further than Freud, because able to recount the ancient beauty pageant that led to the Trojan war -- these are not things i'm capable of speaking authoritatively on or recounting nor am i likely to ever be (i cannot quite find it in myself to care as much as i probably should)

for somebody who believes herself to be such an expert on the eye and human beauty, her personal sense of style is truly atrocious

don't get me wrong, i highly doubt i add even her pinky toe's value in education and running around blabbing about different decades and this and that and the other thing

i mean this is somebody who has obsessed about what civilisation is and has been throughout history

whereas i don't necessarily find that subject matter as thrilling... maybe i did in my 20s

i just think there are... flaws that didn't bother me at the time about her in my 20s, but maybe do now

maybe i'm just apathetic now, i'm not sure i mean it's not the sign that i'm very intelligent that my goals include Taekwondo on the Detroit Riverwalk

Break, Blow, Burn (my personal favourite) of her books is more my thing, or thinking about music videos is kinda my thing, personally.

hmm.... well, food for thought i guess.

i guess there are lessons if i consider the world from a more Paglian perspective

like maybe people were always idiots for beauty and that's why they love Taylor Swift you know? What's Camille Paglia have to say about that? I know she said Taylor was like a 1950s Sandra Dee Debbie Reynolds Doris Day nightmare which is prob why Taylor mentioned not wanting to be that in Lavender Haze,

and i mean that's correct about what everyone wants out of Taylor, it's like the return of Conservative America's notion of what quality is

Like Elon Musk gets a boner for Taylor on Twitter and makes it clear I'm sure Trump would too if he stood a chance and people decided that's quality huh it's very Barbie in a bad way and very soulless in my opinion no matter how teenage girl's diary her lyrics are and how fascinating some people find that or how these people think she's Shakespeare

huh well i'm drifting off into blather

i don't know if there's anything left to uncover here

Taylor does suck and America is boring

i don't have the answers but i do know what a major social problem looks like probably better than Camille Paglia does

although who couldn't

it's pretty obvious that guns, nuclear war, and violence against not just women but everyone -- is a way bigger problem than how Gloria Steinem has a difference of opinion or Catherine MacKinnon thinks porn degrades women

i mean there's so many goddamn social problems

and i know Camille did fight for more reliance money on the state

like massive amounts more state money for arts

which is sensible and good

but i think some major issues just seem over her head or she isn't concerned

Global Warming, Environmentalism, Nuclear War, War, Inequality Homelessness, Housing Prices, Violence, The Opoid Epidemic, American Obesity

i mean these are major major issues and she certainly doesn't seem particularly concerned compared to wanting to talk about that time she got in a fight in college over something with some feminists

she's made super dismissive comments about global warming and war, which is simply stupid and not hip, no matter how much she tries to be cool

if she talked to fewer white people and more people of different races around the world, she'd better understand

#camille paglia #taylor swift #catherine mackinnon

[mizgnomer]

Levitating Tennant

Just a few photos where his feet don’t touch the ground...

#david tennant #because it amuses me #no special effects required #doctor who #good omens #jessica jones #with lots of special guest apperances #some of whom are also levitating #catherine tate #michael sheen #john hamm #neil gaiman #douglas mackinnon #stuff I posted #just a bit of fun #levitating tennant

[radhyena]

“As Catherine A. MacKinnon wrote in the one sentence that every woman should risk her life to understand: “Man fucks woman; subject verb object.”

- Andrew Dworkin, Right Wing Women 39

#radblr #radfem #radical feminism #Andrea dworkin #Catherine a mackinnon #dworkin

[dwellordream]

"Defining women by biology—adult is biological age, human is biological species, female is biological sex—used to be criticized as biological essentialism. Those winging to the Right are thrilled by this putatively feminist reduction of women to female body parts, preferably chromosomes and reproductive apparatus, qualities chosen so that whatever is considered definitive of sex is not only physical but cannot be physically changed into."

Catharine MacKinnon, "Exploring Transgender Law and Politics"

#catherine mackinnon #gender #word to the wise

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Ooh! A wonderful interview with Rich Keeble who played Mr. Arnold (the one with the Doctor Who Annual :)) in S2! :)❤

Q: In Good Omens 2 you play Mr. Arnold, who runs the music shop on Whickber Street. Were you a fan of Good Omens before joining the cast, and is it challenging to take on such an iconic story which is already loved by a huge fanbase?

A: “There’s always pressure if you’re working on something with an existing fanbase and people might have an idea already as to how you should be approaching something. To be honest I was aware of the show but I hadn’t actually seen it before I was asked to get involved. I knew it was something special though! I remember talking to Tim Downie [Mr. Brown] about how when you tape for certain things you know if something’s a “good one”. Of course by the time I was on set I’d watched Season 1 and read the book. 

I had an interesting route into the show actually: I was asked at the last minute to read the stage directions at the tableread on Zoom, and Douglas [Mackinnon] the director called me up to discuss pronunciations of the character names etc. To prepare further I quickly watched the first episode on Prime Video, and I was very quickly drawn into it. A couple of hours later I was on a Zoom call with David [Tennant], Michael [Sheen] (with his bleached hair), Neil [Gaiman], Douglas and the whole team, including Suzanne [Smith] and Glenda [Mariani] in casting. After that readthrough I asked my agent to try and see if she could shoehorn me in and she came back with a tape for Mr. Arnold saying “you play the piano don’t you…?” They wanted me to demonstrate my musical playing ability, so I rented a rehearsal studio room in Brixton for an hour and filmed myself playing piano (and drums just in case), then I did my scenes a couple of different ways and I guess it wasn’t too terrible!”

Q: During episode five you mimed to music written by series composer David Arnold alongside a real string quartet – this must have been very immersive! How did it feel to work with David, and bring the ball to life?

A: “I actually didn’t meet David Arnold sadly, but I did work with Catherine Grimes, the music supervisor who is lovely. David was at the London screening but I missed an opportunity to go and say hello to him which I kicked myself about. 

I remember before I was in Scotland there was a bit of uncertainty as to whether I would need to play anything for real or not, so I practised every day playing loads of Bach and other music I thought was era-appropriate just in case they asked me to do anything on the fly. So yes, it was very immersive as you say! They sent me three pieces of music to learn which I practised in my Edinburgh apartment on a portable folding keyboard thing I bought. They introduced me to the string quartet (John, Sarah, Alison and Stephanie) and I tried to hang out with them when I could. On the day we all had earpieces to mime to. I had to mime while listening out for a cue from Nina [Sosanya] from across the room, then deliver my dialogue and carry on playing, which was tricky! The quartet and I helped each other out actually: Douglas would say something like “let’s go from a minute into the second piece of music”, I’d look at the sheet music and whisper “where the hell is that?” and one of the quartet would say “we think that’s bar 90” or something. Here’s a little bit of trivia: the shooting overran and the string quartet couldn’t make the last day, so they found some incredible lookalikes to replace them for the scene when we get lead out of the bookshop through all the demons, although I think they also kept them deliberately off camera.” 

Q: What did you think of your music shop when you first saw the set? Did you have a favourite poster or prop?

A: “I thought it was incredible! It could’ve been an actual music shop with all the instruments hanging up with the “Arnold’s” price tags on. The attention to detail was incredible, well IS incredible as I understand it’s all still there. It’s hard to pick a favourite to be honest. I did a little video walkaround on my phone at the time so maybe I’ll post that if I won’t get in trouble. Interestingly the shop interior itself was elsewhere on the set to the shop entrance you see from the street. You walk out of Aziraphale’s shop, over the road, through the door of the music shop and… there’s nothing.” 

Q: Mr. Arnold is tempted into the ball by a Doctor Who Annual and is playing the theme in the music shop scene – are you a fan of Doctor Who in real life? And what was it like making those jokes and references in front of the Tenth Doctor David Tennant?

A: “I’ve always dipped in and out of Doctor Who over the years since Sylvestor McCoy, who was doing it when I first became aware of it when I was growing up. Even if you’re not a fan it’s one of those shows you can’t really get away from, so doing that particular scene in front of David was really fun, and of course Douglas had directed Doctor Who as well. Apart from the amusing situation of two supposed Doctor Who fans talking about Doctor Who without realising they’re in the company of a Doctor Who, I also seem to remember Michael being the one to suggest that he would deliver his “due to problems at the BBC” line directly to David.

Oh, and I think it was actually my idea to grab the annual off the harpsichord before joining the queue behind Crowley at the end of the ballroom scene (which we’d shot weeks earlier at this point). When we were blocking it out and rehearsing I knew I had to leave my position and get to the front for my “surrender the angle” line, and then later it just felt like I wouldn’t leave without the annual so I ran back through everyone to grab it. Nobody seemed to have a problem with me doing that so I just carried on doing it when we shot it! I do remember it being a fun set with Douglas and the team being very open to suggestions.”

Q: How did you balance filming both Good Omens and BBC Ghosts at the same time?

A: “Luckily both shows were a joy to work on, and everyone seems to know about both of them. We were shooting them in early 2022 and I also had a little part in an ITV drama called ‘Stonehouse’, starring Matthew Macfadyen. I usually never know when I’m working next so to have three great TV jobs at once was very unusual. There was all this date juggling and I actually almost had to turn down Ghosts due to clashes. Luckily both shows had to move some dates so it worked out. But yes, I spent two weeks up in Scotland shooting all that Good Omens ballroom stuff, then I came back down to London to do Ghosts, knowing I’d be back up to shoot my scenes in the music shop in a couple of weeks. Now, when I found out who was playing my wife in Ghosts I couldn’t believe it: Caroline Sheen – Michael Sheen’s cousin! She was amazing and that was another great set in general. I say “set”, but it’s all filmed in that house which surprised me. I’d worked with Kiell [Smith-Bynoe] and Jim [Howick] before, and Charlotte [Ritchie] was in the Good Omens radio play a few years ago and a big fan of the book. Charlotte’s very musical of course and we got talking about my folding keyboard I had for practising my Good Omens stuff, and she ended up setting it up in the house for us to have a play on!

Now, when we’d shot all our internal scenes there was this big storm forecast, and our external scenes were scheduled for the day of the storm, so that had to be moved into the next week. It meant I ended up shooting those scenes outside the house, then going straight back up to Scotland to shoot the Good Omens music shop scene the next day! When I mentioned to Michael I’d just worked with Caroline he said “ooh she’s in Ghosts is she!” and revealed that she’d texted him about me which was rather surreal. Then later after the Ghosts wrap party Kiell gave me a part in his Channel 4 Blap, so at the time I felt like I was killing it career wise, but the industry quietened a bit after that and my workload eased off over the year so I was in my overdraft by November.”

Q: What are your plans for the future – can we expect to see you in something else soon?

A: “This year, after a bit of a quiet start, I was very fortunate to work on a Disney+ show called Rivals which stars… David Tennant! I think I’m allowed to say my character is called Brian, and I shot five episodes so that was another really amazing job, and great to work with David again (I told him he must be my good luck charm, although I hope he’s not sick of me). That should be out at some point in late 2024. Other than that I’ve filmed a few other bits I presume will be out next year, one of which is called Truelove on Channel 4 which actually looks really good. That starts early January. Of course now Season 3 of Good Omens has been greenlit, I would love Neil and the gang to have me back on that… but I can only keep my fingers crossed!”

#good omens #gos2 #season 2 #swirlywords #rich keeble #mr arnold #2ep5 #2i5i4 #2i5i15 #bts #photos #bts photos #interview #rich keeble interview #rivals #skittles #eric #disposable demon #paul adeyefa #ann louise ross #demon skittles #donna preston #mrs sandwich #tim downie #mr brown #magic shop #fun fact #s2 interview

[gatheringbones]

[“Feminism that welcomes police power is called carceral feminism. The sociologist Elizabeth Bernstein, one of the first to use this phrase, uses it to describe a feminist approach that prioritises a ‘law-and-order agenda’; a shift ‘from the welfare state to the carceral state as the enforcement apparatus for feminist goals’.

Carceral feminism focuses on policing and criminalisation as the key ways to deliver justice to women. Carceral feminism has gained popularity even though the police – and the wider criminal justice system – are key perpetrators of violence against women. In the United States, police officers are disproportionately likely to be violent or abusive to their partners or children. At work, they commit vast numbers of assaults, rapes, or harassment. Sexual assault is the second-most commonly reported form of police violence in the United States (after excessive use of force), and on-duty police commit sexual assaults at more than double the rate of the general US population. Those are just the assaults that make it into the statistics: many will never dare to make a report to an abuser’s colleague.

Meanwhile, the very nature of police work involves perpetrating violence: in arrests or when they collaborate in incarceration, surveillance, or deportation. In 2017, there was outrage in the United Kingdom when it emerged that the Metropolitan Police had arrested a woman on immigration charges after she came to them as a victim of rape. However, it is routine for police to threaten to arrest or deport migrant sex workers, even when the worker in question has come to them as a victim of violence.

Carceral feminism looms large in sex-trade debates. Feminist commentators pronounce that ‘we must strengthen police apparatus’;that criminalisation is ‘the only way’ to end the sex trade; and that some criminalisation can be relatively ‘benign’. Anti-prostitution feminist Catherine MacKinnon even writes with ambivalent approval of ‘brief jail time’ for prostitutes on the basis that jail can be ‘a respite from the pimps and the street’. She quotes like-minded feminists who argue that ‘jail is the closest thing many women in prostitution have to a battered women’s shelter’ and that, ‘considering the absence of any other refuge or shelter, jail provides a temporary safe haven’.

Sex workers do not share this rosy view of arrest and incarceration. One sex worker in Norway told researchers, ‘You only call the police if you think you’re going to die … If you call the police, you risk losing everything’”]

molly smith, juno mac, from revolting prostitutes: the fight for sex workers’ rights, 2018

#molly smith #juno mac #currently reading #history stuff