This type of behavior is indicative of a larger cultural problem that devalues women and their contributions. It also creates an environment that reinforces the idea that men are superior and that women should not be taken seriously. By allowing this type of content, social media sites like Facebook are perpetuating this ideology.
This type of thinking is oppressive and is a form of fascism. In my opinion, if you are not a feminist, you are a fascist.
Sorry if the Facebook memes in the pic are disturbing. But I needed to make a point.
You’re not wrong, but unfortunately much of what passes for “feminism” in the west today has also become complicit in this stuff. (Not to open that struggle session again, but I first realized this about the time certain center-left publications started pushing the “sex work is work” line in a completely uncritical way; whatever the proper Marxist attitude to prostitution is, promoting it to huge numbers of women, as a viable substitute for productive labor, is certainly unprincipled and plays into the hand of capital). Socialist feminism is the way forward!
Women’s bodies will be exploited as long as there is a profit motive. This exploitation often takes the form of objectification, commodification, and sexualization. This exploitation has been normalized and perpetuated through the media, advertisements, and other forms of popular culture. Women are often portrayed as objects to be admired or used for pleasure, instead of being seen as individuals with agency and autonomy. As a result, women’s bodies remain commodified and objectified. This exploitation can also be seen in the sex industry, where women’s bodies are treated as commodities and are bought and sold for sexual gratification. Prostitution, strip clubs, and other forms of sex work are often seen as acceptable, which further perpetuates the objectification of women’s bodies. Communism seeks to abolish the oppressive capitalist system that commodifies and objectifies women’s bodies.
We need communism for women’s liberation there is no alternative.
Capitalism and sexism reinforce each other definitely. We should be abolishing commodification of everything, especially women. In capitalism women can be leaders of capitalistic enterprises, but they have had mixed results of show well they actually change the system. Capitalism relies on exploitation and women have been exploited for far too long.
The failures of third-wave feminist wrt industrial exploitation of women & the manifest inadequacies of second-wave feminism wrt class/race/the arrangement of exploitation as a base are how I found Marxism. That said, I would probably categorise ‘anti-feminism’ as a reactionary mentality different to being critical of a particular doctrine of feminist thought - even though ‘feminism’ without description is a meaningless word.
I appreciate you bringing this up and moving the conversation forward about what is often surprisingly contentious for Marxists about feminism, though (the status of prostitution) - it’s important for Marxists to establish a proper line on women’s rights (broadly speaking) and not merely mimic liberals on issues that they may not be informed about. The stance you espouse should be utterly uncontroversial.
Another thing that comes to mind as a practical example for Marxists online is the recruitment tactics of OnlyFans and the proliferation of pro-OnlyFans discourse in sites frequented by teenagers and marginalised women.
Agree on that point. I think part of the problem is that “feminism,” like “democracy” and even “socialism,” has become in mainstream discourse just a buzzword for something vaguely Good and Progressive, which most people couldn’t define if you asked them to, but which they feel they must as citizens of the modern west support. That sort of vague sentiment is easily attacked and destroyed by those with some ulterior motive.
It kind of is in this sub – I only was tentative in bringing it up because last year, after the first big reddit exodus happened, we had about four massive site-wide arguments on the topic. When the genuine Marxist line you’ve indicated became basically uncontroversial, and everybody moved on to knock-down, drag-out struggle sessions on “what is productive labor,” and “what is socialist patriotism,” I knew we’d finally transcended reddit.
The argument over whether “sex work is work” always confused me, because either way, the only option is unionization and class solidarity. It feels like a moralistic, abstract debate to me.
It is definitely more vague in cases such as hobbyist or petite-bourgoisie sex workers, but it seems to be the same conclusion of unionization and solidarity either way?
I suppose the argument could be on whether or not it should be illegal, but that doesn’t seem like much of an argument, making it illegal to be a sex worker would make it harder for them to organize, so that shouldn’t be illegal anyways, but exploiting people’s bodies for profit is literally the worst excess of capitalism, so profiting off of sex workers definitely should be illegal. There is no room for ambiguity here.
Women Across Culture: A Global Perspective by Shawn Meghan Burn did discuss about the appropriation of feminist label to mean white feminism and that the white female colonizers claimed to oppose imperialism and women’s domination by men of color in the European Age of Conquest when the white women hypocritically support the white patriachal oppression of women of color to gain support from racist sexist white men for white feminism. Although white feminist in Western European diaspora did take some action against men of color, they will disregard the perspective of women of color who face the actual oppression and demand the women of color to submit to sexist white men for salvation.