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Why is it that every angry response I've seen in regards to the whole Open Source Boob Project debacle has included an argument the the effect that women are far too weak and fragile to know their own minds and be expected to make decisions for themselves, therefore it's wrong to present them with that choice. Because when someone says that the women who were happy to allow people to ask to grope them were just bowing to subconscious pressure from a male-dominated society to let men control their bodies, or whatever form the argument happened to take, that is what I hear.
I'm a pretty shitty feminist on a good day, but how is there any way for that argument to be anything other than blatantly and offensively sexist?
I can certainly see how the Open Source Project could lead to bad things on a wide scale, but I personally would never find it offensive if someone politely asked if they could touch my breasts. Even if my answer was no, I still wouldn't be offended that they had asked.
I like them and I don't see it as a problem if other people do, too.
I'm a pretty shitty feminist on a good day, but how is there any way for that argument to be anything other than blatantly and offensively sexist?
I can certainly see how the Open Source Project could lead to bad things on a wide scale, but I personally would never find it offensive if someone politely asked if they could touch my breasts. Even if my answer was no, I still wouldn't be offended that they had asked.
I like them and I don't see it as a problem if other people do, too.
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From:
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You talk about women "knowing their own minds" and one of the things that feminists have theorized and tried to complicate is that notion of "freedom"--the way that we come to know our minds, and come to see our options, and the social pressures that come to play as we define ourselves.
Feminism really is about empowerment, but part of that isn't just about validating all choices women make (because really, women can make decisions that hurt themselves and hurt others) but about creating a world in which women have more and better choices from which to choose, with fewer of those choices weighted so as to reward women with happiness so long as their choices give men pleasure.
For instance, as a feminist, I totally support a woman's right to prostitute her body and sell her sex for money. But even as I do so, I'm working for a world in which prostitution is safer, and in which women have access to more options, because many women would prefer to do something else if they could, and prostitution is the best choice among available choices (which is not the same as saying it's the best choice, period).
And I fully support a woman's right to wear one of those buttons if she likes, but I also recognize that just as women may have been happy to wear them, there's a downside--there are ways in which those same women might've been made unhappy--and I want to look at those ways and see what was at stake in their decision.
The OSBP existed within a context in which women are already valued for their breasts, and in which women have a difficult time being taken seriously on the same level as men. So, while the women who participated may well have done so "freely," and without regret, their choices were constrained so that there were some serious pressures at play on them, whether or not they were thinking about them at the time. The OSBP was proposed as a liberatory, good thing--something that valued breasts. If a woman in that social group said no, she would be doing something other than playing along. She would have to choose to not play knowing that doing so set her outside of the group--at least for the moment--in the same way that, when you go out with a bunch of friends who go drinking and choose not to drink, you do so knowing that you will be an outsider, set apart from the clique. That's peer pressure at work, and it's hard to not give in and join the group activity, especially if you can't come up with a good rationale for not joining (and especially if the participants are arguing that it's a good thing, bound to set you free, etc.)
If you move the experiment outside of a small peer group in a con suite to the con-at-large, suddenly the choices are even more complicated. What if it's a sci-fi con and a woman says yes knowing that there's a publisher she wants to publish with and admires participating in the button-wearing event? What if it's a computer-geek-type con and she's sort of on the lookout for a job? What if she just sees something's happening and comes up to someone and says, "So what's with the green and red buttons?" and that person explains it? Suddenly, she has to define her sexuality and bodily boundaries in a way she may not have planned to with someone she may someday (or that day) be hoping to engage in a professional relationship.
She has already gone through "freely" choosing her wardrobe for the event (knowing that, because she's a woman, she's going to be evaluated on the basis of her body even before anyone speaks to her). Now she has to make another decision--to wear a button (red or green) or to back away and not wear one, all the while wondering what those people think of her for participating or not. Do they see her as someone who's easy to get along with? Do they see her as a humorless bitch? Is she a prude? Is she friendly? Is she professional? Is she someone you'd want to hang with but wouldn't hire?
If you haven't already, you ought to read this:
http://springheel-jack.livejournal.com/2504924.html
(and particularly
From:
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As I see it, the much greater problem with the project is the major flaw in our society that makes it Not Okay to say no to anything without feeling you need to defend that response. If someone asks you if you have a penny, you dig around and look for one. If a friend asks you to go out and do something, you either agree or you come up with a reason why you can't. If someone you know asks you for a favor and it's within your grasp to grant it, you do it even though it inconveniences you and you maybe don't want to unless you can come up with a reason you can't. A request has to be pretty damn unappealing for you to say no without qualifying your response. (By "you" I mean generally any individual in our society [this concept was first posited to me as "southern hospitality" but I'm reasonably certain it extends much wider than that], though obviously mileage will vary from person to person.)
If anyone took a green button or said yes to being touched even though it made them feel uncomfortable, I find it much more likely that it was because of the social pressure to "be nice" or however you look at it, rather than an indirect result of sexism. It's possible that women are more likely than men to "be nice" even when it can negatively effect them because we are generally more social creatures, but I don't think that's something that feminism can fix. I like that I'm a social creature, even though it means that I'm driving my brother-in-law to a doctor's appointment tomorrow that I'd really rather not.
So, yeah, I guess I'm apparently equating breast-fondling in that given situation with loaning someone a penny. I stand by the general comparison, despite those obviously not being equally weighed events.
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