Red Light Politics

Welcome to my short form Tumblr blog. My name is Flavia Tamara Dzodan, I am a business developer, writer, public speaker, ideas instigator, content creator, media facilitator and trend watcher living in Amsterdam.

This Tumblr is about the spaces and intersections between politics, culture, race and gender matters with some humor and pop culture thrown in the mix.

My long reads blog is Red Light Politics.

I also blog at Tiger Beatdown.

If you would like to know more about me, visit this page .

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191 posts tagged feminism

Tiger Beatdown: Missing intersectionality in sex positive feminism: the unaddressed racism in porn

CONTENT WARNING: THE PIECE AT THE LINK DISCUSSES RACIST SEXUAL VIOLENCE.

The last time I wrote a critique of porn, some people left comments saying I had no business criticizing the stuff because “they liked it” and being sex positive meant that if you like something, it is not OK to challenge it. Ever since, I’ve been thinking a lot about those comments, specifically because of how they close the possibility of any kind of intersectional approach (namely, how our preferences and actions are informed by a conflagration of factors including, race, class, dis/ability, etc.). Well, I set to challenge that idea. From the piece:

If you point out that there are ingrained elements of racism within certain sub genres of pornography, to wit, some stuff that is presented as “fetish”, the usual defense, even from many in the sex positive feminist camp, is that “people like what they like” and, as long as it is consensual, we should not question it. This kind of determinism due to preference remains unexamined, unchallenged, as if our personal taste would develop in a vacuum, devoid of any other sociocultural influence. As if we could separate ourselves from the environment where we exist. I suspect this uncritical “we like what we like” argument stems from a need to anticipate the attacks based on moralistic arguments. I understand that anything that deviates from the heteronormative and patriarchal ideas of “acceptable” is criticized on tenuous arguments involving “values” and supposed “deviance”. However, “we might like what we like” and still, that supposedly personal preference might not be as simple or as harmless as we might want to believe. Kyriarchy, after all, infiltrates even the most seemingly disconnected areas of our lives.

“

Recently on talk shows there has been a certain amount of upstanding feminist tsk-tsking about the retrograde soft-core exploitation of women in Fifty Shades of Grey, and there seem to be no shortage of liberal pundits asking, “Is this what they went to the barricades for?” …

It is perhaps inconvenient for feminism that the erotic imagination does not submit to politics, or even changing demographic realities

”

Katie Roiphe for Newsweek. Seriously though what the fuck is she even talking about? What “upstanding feminist” has been tsk-tsking Fifty Shades of Grey for it’s sexual content?

All I’ve read is people taking the book to task for its atrocious and funny bad writing. I don’t exactly live in a cave. 

(via bricksandmortarandchewinggum)

Katie Roiphe is a living testament to the power of nepotism, because I assure you that had her mother not also been a published writer, Roiphe would be spewing her barely coherent nonsense on blogs and tumblrs like the rest of us.

(via whynotshesaid)

What amazed me about the article (well, amazed might not be the right word, more like “how I realized I was in the presence of the usual nonsense”) was how bland and ultimately  ordinary her “analysis” was. I know I can mention intersectionality until the cows come to graze in my living room, but really, there wasn’t even a half hearted attempt at any of it in this piece. And to make matters even more hilariously misguided, the “analysis” of the fetish part itself was incredibly narrow and lacked the most basic nuance. 

It’s like the least interesting writer was offered the topic she knew the least about and for which she had the least interest in researching a bare minimun. And bam, that’s the piece we got at Newsweek. 

(via whynotshesaid)

Source bricksandmortarandchewinggum

Leadership and responsibility

I’ve been thinking a lot this morning about the “crazy and lame” remark from last night and mostly, trying to situate it within one of the topics I am fascinated with: feminist ethics. Because here is the thing: I get it that the tweet was probably meant to be snarky and edgy and oh so ironic. I am aware that some people actually believe these are legitimate jokes to be made. There is a reason hipster racism exists as a category and I see the “crazy and lame” remark in that context.

However, I keep bringing up the issue of ethics and how we have failed to create a certain model of ethical leadership within the movement. And I know people could easily say that Jezebel is not a feminist site which is true. However, Jessica Coen does present herself as a “new face of feminism” and accepts to be featured in a position of leadership within the movement in mainstream media. That alone carries a certain responsibility. Mainly, the responsibility not to be deliberately hurtful to others, that, at the very basic, base level. I get the “foot in mouth” nature of Twitter and the temptation to just say something witty or try to be funny. On Twitter, that is usually rewarded with more followers and more attention. However, there has to be a check and balance where if you are positioned as a visible face of a movement, a position you, yourself accept and actually promote by participating in these features, at the very least, you do not harm those you supposedly represent.

Someone relatively well known within feminism unfollowed me on Twitter last night, I suspect because of how I was barging about accountability and leadership. However, I insist on this because that is at the very root of our collective failures. We can choose to align ourselves with commercial goals that only seek to promote page clicks and media dissemination or we can remain within a certain ethical framework that deems this kind of snark hurtful and unacceptable. We cannot have it both ways. I certainly do not begrudge Ms. Coen for trying to make money and increase the popularity of the media outlet she manages. This is part of earning a living, everyone to varying degrees participates in this system. However, I do hold her accountable for her position of leadership within a movement that supposedly represents me and billions of other people and for failing to take on that responsibility in an ethical manner.

What does it mean?

I’ve been ranting here and on Twitter today about the piece about feminism at The Guardian. However, I don’t think I can properly convey my frustration at this and so many other failures representative of mainstream European feminism.

The thing is, I have so little to draw upon. I have so few references dripping into mainstream media about the experiences of people like me. Because I constantly struggle to answer a few basic questions: what does it mean to be an immigrant, non White woman in The Netherlands (cis and non cis alike)? What does it mean to be this immigrant woman in the context of EU wide immigration policies and State violence? What do media depictions for people like me look like? Why does feminism not challenge the widespread notion that immigrant = Muslim in Europe? How can feminism claim to represent “women” and yet not highlight this hegemonic discourse in mainstream media, mostly because it is used as an alibi to prevent accusations of racism or xenophobia by creating this category of immigrant = Muslim? How can feminism fail to address the realities of the migrant women (again, I insist, cis and non cis alike) crossing through the African continent only to end up detained in EU subsidized camps across Northern Africa, to prevent them from even arriving at EU borders? How can feminism not address the institutional inequalities of the millions of non White women across the EU? And moreover, the invisibilization of undocumented immigrants and the violence they are exposed to on a day to day basis?

Because, I have said this many times: I read news and media in several languages. And while all of these issues I mentioned above are covered by a variety of different grassroots organizations and activists, they hardly ever (if at all) get any mainstream coverage and, to add insult to injury, the feminists organizations that do get mainstream coverage do not consider these issues worthy of attention. Simply put, none of this exists in the public eye. And honestly? It depresses me big time.

“We grow up being told that anger is bad. Good girls do not express their anger, good girls play nice, they accommodate, they please. It is time we start looking at anger differently. Why are we so bent on suppressing this anger when for so many, it is the only emotion left in the face of injustice? Why should young women appear compliant and docile when they are obviously being subjected to violence or inequity? Why shouldn’t anger be a legitimate drive for our politics? Change will not come because we ask for permission, change will happen because we leave no other alternative.”

Flavia Dzodan, “Show them how to resist: Connecting girls, inspiring futures” at Tiger Beatdown (via morecoffee)

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(via hamuu)

Oh.

(via green-street-politics)

Source tigerbeatdown.com

“The email was not accompanied by a note saying why the organisation would be good to speak to for this particular article.”

Priceless! The author of the piece in The Guardian I posted a moment ago, in response to Black Feminists UK’s critique of lack of broad representation. (Scroll down to the comments section to read it).

I mean, if you are a writer, for a major publication, you actually get to blame the people you did not cover in your feature for not being represented? My mind = blown.

“These are feminists who do not fit easily into stereotypical moulds: young and old, men and women, urbanites and country dwellers. A new breed of feminists is starting to rise up.”

Feminists hail explosion in new grassroots groups | World news | The Guardian

Heh “new breed of feminists”. This is when I laugh Beavis and Butthead style. Because really? The entire article only refers to White feminism and the feminist troubles of White Europeans. Not a single mention to the kind of intersectional issues that plague immigrant women, or non White women and the kind of grassroots movements that represent them. In fact, there is nothing new about this kind of feminism. It’s the continuation of how things have always been. 

But then again, remember when a few months ago, The F Word UK compiled a list of Twitter users by area of interest and there wasn’t even a mere mention of immigration issues, anti racism or the issues surrounding policies that affect non White women specifically? Plenty of anti porn and anti “objectification”, but mostly in so far as it affects the members of the dominant culture. Which, if you are going to challenge the status quo, you might want to rethink why your movement is only representative of those that already have a measure of power in society.

Pro choice rhetoric

I don’t think this needs clarifying but by now everyone knows I am firmly pro choice. Yet, I am constantly troubled by some of the rhetoric the pro choice camp uses to defend our position. I mean, I’ve said this before but what does the word “choice” even mean when for so many the only options are a rock and a hard place? Choice for whom and under what circumstances? 

But that’s neither here nor there. Lately, I’ve been coming across another rhetoric device that people are using regularly, mostly in view of the laws that Kansas and other States are debating/ passing that allow doctors to lie to pregnant patients. Some people are saying “Well, those doctors should be forced to adopt the children that are born as a result of their lies”. And you know? No. This is messed up. We know the kind of woman that will most likely be lied to (hint: probably not White, middle or above class, with legal recourses and the possibility to have the procedure done some place else). The people that will most likely be lied to are people whose babies have been always treated as either commodities up for grabs or not human at all (i.e. the babies of PoC, the babies of people with disabilities, babies born with disabilities, etc.). To suggest that yet again, it’d be legitimate to hand those babies away as if the parents had no agency or as if the best remedy is to actually remove their autonomy is actually a disservice to reproductive justice.

“We can ask: what recedes when diversity becomes a view? If diversity is a way of viewing or even picturing an institution, then it might allow only some things to come into view. Diversity is often used as shorthand for inclusion, as the ‘‘happy point’’ of intersectionality, a point where lines meet. When intersectionality becomes a ‘‘happy point,’’ the feminist of color critique is obscured. All differences matter under this view. Yet diversity in the policy world still tends to be associated with race. The association is sticky, which means the tendency is reproduced by not being made explicit. This book investigates what diversity does by focusing on what diversity obscures, that is, by focusing on the relationship between diversity and racism as a way of making explicit a tendency that is reproduced by staying implicit.”

Sara Ahmed - from her new book “On Being Included. Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life”.

Just thought some of you might be interested in this: Duke University Press has made the foreword and introduction of Ahmed’s new book available at Scribd.

A perfect spring afternoon watching butterflies

Imagine that it’s a warm spring afternoon. You sit somewhere in the middle of nature (a park, the woods, maybe the top of a hill). You enjoy the touch of grass on your skin, the smell of greenery, the breeze. The reason you do this is because you love to watch butterflies flocking together. You love the way they fly from one spot to another, their wings, the colors, all that graceful movement, almost as if they were suspended midair, not for anyone’s gaze but for their own pleasure.

Then one of your friends finds out about these little moments you indulge in, observing the butterflies and they realize how important these moments are to you. They decide that they are going to give you a present. So, they go out and catch as many butterflies as they can and pin them on a cardboard. They then frame the dead butterflies and cover them with glass. And they present you with this gift so that you can evoke the pleasure of observing the grace of butterflies flocking in nature.

That is exactly how I feel when I read most of sex positive feminist discourse.

Also, because feminism has only a lose set of “principles” or concerns and hardly any widespread ethical approach to praxis, it is that known abusers can claim to be “feminists” and decide that they can speak on behalf of feminism and we have absolutely no tools to unequivocally say No, you do not belong. For all our talks and analysis of consent, we cannot ever refuse to consent to have some people be part of our movement.

Considering there isn’t even consensus on whether feminism is a political movement or a philosophy (or a mix of both), I suppose this is to be expected. However, we have also failed to develop safeguards and protections for this movement/philosophy/cross. And that’s probably at the root of several failures within feminism itself.

A whole family, including three babies/ toddlers die in a tornado. What do Jezebel commenters do? Why shame them for living in a trailer, being poor, not having built a basement and well… dying.

And these are the people with whom we supposedly share a similar political outlook? (Jezebel demographics tend to be on the more leftist side of the spectrum, they tend to identify as feminist, etc). You know when I wrote last week about feminist ethics? Some people (rightfully) inquired as to what I meant and if I had specific examples about the possible/ potential concerns of a feminist outlook towards ethics. Here, Jezebel is an excellent example: how can you milk the feminist media machine while at the same time you take zero responsibility for both your editorial actions and the moderation of commentary that is allowed within your site? All the profits, none of the feminist accountability.

MOAR ANGER

Well not really anger but a couple more thoughts around my musings on radical anger, feminism, etc. In my quest for a framework that includes ethics and praxis in feminist politics, I also started to scrutinize how the discourse surrounding reproductive justice is articulated in mainstream media. I am more interested in how the “pro choice” side comes across (because really, at this point, I don’t feel like dissecting the pro life camp’s bigotry). And this is the part where media, feminism and discourse are intertwined. In general, the right to chose is framed as “a good thing because it gives women freedom”, which I fully agree (as if this needed clarification, I am fully pro choice). However, this supposed “freedom” in media discourse is actually code for “the freedom to participate in the market economy” (i.e. have a career, produce goods and services, become full time participants in exchanges of goods and services for pay, etc). Which, of course, is no freedom at all. As in, there is no other choice but to participate in a capitalist economy in some capacity. We cannot drop out of it, as it were. So this supposed “choice” is actually devoid of choice. 

And these are the kinds of analysis of “moral dilemmas” or “ethical frameworks” I was looking for and how they can be deconstructed (and addressed) within feminist praxis.

Anger, feminist ethics, action

I’ve written before (brushed over might be a more accurate descriptor) about my interest in what I referred to as “a feminist ethics” and I have been kind of surprised about how little theory there is behind it. Sure, there are theories of feminist ethics, such as the works of philosophers like Carol Gilligan (whose work set some of the basis for the “Ethics of Care”) but in almost everything I read about feminist ethics, I am put off by two issues: 1) the staggering gender essentialism that surrounds most of the analysis and 2) how it is actually devoid of a more intersectional approach. To me, ethics are not removed from the overall social context where we exist. So, I would expect a feminist approach to ethics to take these into account. 

So now, I am trying to formulate some coherent thoughts around “the moral imperative” (which is part of Kant’s categorical imperative). The reason I am doing this is because I’ve been invited to give a workshop about radical anger and political action at a festival in May here in Amsterdam (I won’t disclose details until the program of the festival comes out because I wouldn’t want to spoil it for the organizers). So, I’ve been thinking of the “moral imperative” and how, to me, it is inextricably connected to anger and how both can be the basis for political action. Of course, this is not the only topic I am scribbling about in relation to political/ feminist anger, but it’s one of my starting points. And here is what I am failing at: I can hardly find any reference materials to support my ideas. Sure these ideas cannot be original (hardly anything is original these days, after we’ve been developing politics and philosophy as areas of study for a couple thousand years). It’s just that I find it hard to believe that feminist scholars/ academics would not be interested in these topics (alas, I am not part of academia so my searches are limited to whatever is available for the general public). Yet, I would expect there would be *some* books and/ or papers published by feminists on these topics.

Because, here’s what I find troubling in my search: how can a political and philosophical movement like feminism not have developed some considerable body of work related to ethics and how ethics relate to praxis? Sure I must be looking in the wrong places, right? Or could this be the very reason why feminism, as a philosophy, keeps failing on many levels (how after so many decades, we still need to explain basic concepts like intersectional analysis and so on). Or could it be that, as a philosophy, mainstream, contemporary feminism fails many of us because it has been inextricably tied to capitalism and its constant need to situate women in “careers”, instead of providing tools to lead ethically conscious lives and enact political change?

I have questions; I am failing to find the answers.

Tiger Beatdown: When anger is all I have and why anger is my feminist stand

I wrote about anger. And how anger should be accepted as a legitimate political act. From the post:

And so it is from this moral imperative driven by anger that I write. And I refuse to be boxed in the simplified category of “ranter” because I am angry. Because this anger makes me “difficult”, it makes me “alienating”, it makes me “impossible to deal with” and I should just accept that certain things just are.

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