Towards Better Sexual Politics

HTML version of my eight-fold zine outlining a more cohesive feminist politics. This one is actually very new; I wrote it both to synthesize what I had been reading and thinking about lately, and to get back into practice working with this relatively short form. Maybe I need a separate 'feminism' tag, but I see feminism as something that pierces and interconnects everything else—yet isn't that true of everything?

1. Our Crisis

The US is in a crisis of sexual politics: abortion access is no longer protected on the federal level, allowing states to criminalize it again and surveil women across state lines if suspected; federal courts are ruling against trans people, facilitating the loss of their healthcare, legal recognition, and participation in everyday life; gay and even interracial marriage are next on the table.

Republicans may wield the stick, but Democrats wield the carrot: their lack of urgency over the last few decades, and their ‘response’ to our lost rights, suggests not only incompetence but agreement with our situation.

No current establishment will save us. We need new solutions.

2. Historical Context

The earliest civilizations relied on the exploitation of women and regulation of their (and others’) bodies, because their high death rates due to urbanism necessitated high birth rates.

Marriage was not originally romantic. Women would be exchanged between families to become wives, providing domestic labor and ‘hopefully’ birthing sons to continue their husband’s lines. Daughters were instead raised to be exchanged as wives.

Although early modern societies were less patriarchal—partly because urban health improved, and partly because people had less property to pass on—they still relied on women’s housework and high pregnancy rates.

3. Feminist Gains

The feminism of the twentieth century accomplished many things: suffrage; entrance into the workforce; the right for women to own property in their name, rather than of their fathers or husbands; reproductive health access; and the right to no-fault divorce.

Although these gains were great, they were often and unfortunately limited by women’s social standing: the right to own property doesn’t matter if one is too poor, and non-white women are still discriminated against in hospitals and courtrooms—while already facing worse circumstances than wealthy or white women.

This is not to mention that feminism has a base conflict with our society.

4. Opposite Reactions

Though feminist policies expanded the workforce and therefore the economy in a short term, they kneecapped the economy’s ability to expand over time because women birth less babies.

Remember that civilization started off needing artificially higher birth rates. Because our capitalist economy needs infinite growth, it would cause a crisis of the workforce for the population to decline or even plateau.

Developed countries must either allow immigrants to join their workforce or outsource production, competing with their own population base either way. This is why the USA has lately become both anti-female and anti-immigrant. They’re related.

5. Degrowth Feminism

Feminism must reckon with capitalism and its incompatibility with liberation for women. If our society cannot force women to spend their lives and bodies giving birth to more and more babies, it cannot sustain the economic growth that it depends on (despite producing much more than we need).

That is not the only way capitalism is unsustainable: we must also consider how unfettered industry threatens our environment and species survival, and how our country relies on imperialism to support its economy.

In order to meet feminism’s promises, we must build a new society based on meeting people’s actual needs, rather than on infinite growth.

6. Gay & Trans People

Gay and trans people have always been repressed in patriarchal societies where women are oppressed. Because patriarchy only pretends to be natural, it must punish gay and trans people to make them seem unnatural.

The LGBT movement of the twentieth century decriminalized homosexuality and legalized same-sex marriage, but trans people’s experiences and needs were trivialized (reduced to ‘identity’) to justify ridding them of medical care and legal recognition.

Women, gay, and trans people as such may have particular needs, but they have the same root problem: that their relationships and bodies are dictated by patriarchy’s demands.

7. Our Demands

Female, gay, and trans people have known millennia of control, repression, and abuse. We must strive for a future where no sex is prescribed oppression; where same-sex desire is celebrated; and where changing one’s sex doesn’t overturn their life.

Fuck identity. We want autonomy and privacy from the state for our medical care and interpersonal relationships. We want an economy centered on our real needs instead of infinite growth. We want equal access to resources, opportunities, and protections.

Without guaranteeing all the above, the promise of feminism will always be held over our heads—a cudgel against striving for more.