Cultural Feminism: Feminist Capitalism and the Anti-Pornography Movement

Author(s): Alice Echols

Source: Social Text , Spring - Summer, 1983, No. 7 (Spring - Summer, 1983), pp. 34-53
Published by: Duke University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/466453

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 Cultural Feminism: Feminist Capitalism
and the Anti-Pornography Movement

ALICE ECHOLS

PREFACE

This article offers a critique of the dominant strain in current radical feminism, cultural
feminism, whose ideology, I argue, mirrors dominant cultural assumptions about gender and
sexuality. This is a critique which has developed from within the women's movement and it
reflects the author's involvement in the lesbian-feminist community over the past eight
years. Within this movement in general there has been a stifling of debate over the last
decade. For instance, anti-pornography feminists try to discredit their feminist critics by
labeling them non-feminist or by suggesting that they represent but a "tiny offshoot" of the
movement. Cultural feminism's selective reevaluation of femininity has contributed to this
prohibition against dissent. Cultural feminists have not only characterized criticism as
"unsisterly" or a carryover from the "trashing style" of the male left, but as "male-
identified." It is hoped that this paper will contribute to the re-opening of debate around the
crucial areas of gender and sexuality.

INTRODUCTION - THE NEW FEMINISM OF YIN AND YANG

No politics remains innocent of that which it contests.

For any oppressed group it is tempting to seek solace in the reclamation and rehabilita-
tion of that identity which the larger culture has systematically denigrated. This approach
becomes especially compelling when the possibilities for radical structural change seem
remote, and the only alternative seems to be the liberal solution of token representation an
assimilation into an oppressive and inegalitarian system. Unfortunately, as recent feminism
has become synonymous with the reclamation and establishment of a so-called female
principle, it has come to reflect and reproduce the dominant cultural assumptions abou
women.

This is particularly ironic since early radical feminists, rather than accep
tions about women, had sought the abolition of gender as a meaningful

ALICE ECHOLES is a Ph.D. candidate in History at the University of Michigan. She teach
Studies Program at Michigan and deejays in gay bars.
I want to thank the following individuals for reading and commenting on an earlier draft of
Contratto, Constance Samaras, Kathleen Stewart, Ellen Willis, Marilyn Young, and Patricia
efforts by Sandra Silberstein, Ann Snitow, and Sharon Thompson have improved this paper
version of this paper is forthcoming in Powers of Desire: The Politics of Sexuality, ed. An
Thompson and Christine Stansell.
1. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, "The Personal Is Not Political Enough," Marxist Perspective
p. 94.

34

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 Cultural Feminism 35

believe that the male wor

femaleness,' that the opp
institutions."2 "Masculini
rather than biologically d
discuss gender difference
maleness and femaleness.
with ecology and peace an
away from what one fem
advantage rather than an
female sensibility not only
izations about women, bu
structed. At best, there ha
are biological or cultural in
and some feminists have c
spring from socialization, f
patriarchal society.'"s For
women "we know who we are."'6
To be sure, since the beginning of the women's movement there have been radical
feminists for whom gender is an absolute rather than a relative category. Valerie Solanas's
1967 S.C.U.M. Manifesto is the earliest articulation of this view.7 However it has only been
in the past few years that this perspective has gained legitimacy and achieved hegemony
within the radical feminist movement. This view represents such a fundamental departure
from the early radical feminist vision that it is important to differentiate between the two. I
will therefore refer to this more recent strain of radical feminism as cultural feminism
because it equates women's liberation with the development and preservation of a female
counterculture.8 The phrase, radicalfeminism will be used to describe the earlier antecedent
of this movement.9 Of course, to maintain that there exists a theoretical coherence to cultural
feminism is not to suggest that it is monolithic.

2. Bonnie Kreps, "Radical Feminism I" in Radical Feminism, ed. Anne Koedt, Ellen Levine, and Anita
Rapone (New York: The New York Times Book Co., 1973), p. 239.
3. Adrienne Rich, Mary Daly, and Susan Griffin are the best known proponents of these views: However, the
notion that women's more extensive experience with nurturance makes them natural pacifists is fairly widespread
among feminists.
4. Julia Penelope, "And Now For the Hard Questions," Sinister Wisdom (Fall 1980), p. 103.
5. Janice Raymond, The Transsexual Empire (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), p. 114.
6. Ibid.
7. Solanas achieved some fame when she shot Andy Warhol in 1968.
8. The reconstituted Redstockings, a N.Y. radical feminist group, termed this theoretical tendency cultural
feminism in their 1975 publication Feminist Revolution. Although their critique did identify some of the problems
with cultural feminism, it was seriously marred by its paranoia and homophobia. More recently, Ellen Willis has
critiqued cultural feminism especially as it informs the anti-pornography movement and eco-feminism. See her
fine collection of essays, Beginning To See The Light (New York: Knopf, 1981) and her Village Voice articles.
9. Major cultural feminist texts include: Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born (New York: Norton, 1976); Mary
Daly, Gyn-Ecology (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978); Janice Raymond, The Transsexual Empire; Kathleen Barry,
Female Sexual Slavery (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1979). The now defunct L.A.-based magazine Chrysalis
also served as a major outlet for cultural feminist work since its founding by Susan Rennie and Kirsten Grimstad in
1977. The best single radical feminist anthology is Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, op. cit. Additionally, see
Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex (New York: Morrow, 1970).

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 36 Echols

This paper
basic charac
70s phenom
sade. While
possible to
(FEN) and
studies allow

DEFINING CULTURAL FEMINISM

How does cultural feminism both derive and depart from radical feminism? Compare
today's cultural feminists, radical feminists of the late 60s and early 70s seem like r
materialists. Some radical feminists, especially the Redstockings, stressed the material b
of partiarchy."I For instance, the Redstockings suggested that a woman's decision to ma
should be interpreted as a rational strategy rather than confirmation of false conscious
At the same time, most radical feminists understood sexism as a primarily psycholo
dynamic that was manifested in material conditions. Cultural feminism exaggerates
tendency and subordinates material reality to a supporting role. Andrea Dworkin,
instance, argues that "freedom for women must begin in the repudiation of our mas
ism." 2 Thus the goal of feminism becomes the development of an alternative consc
ness, or what Mary Daly terms "the spring into free space."'3 Unlike most radical femin
cultural feminists assume that individual liberation can be achieved within a patriar
context. This analysis has the disadvantage of denying agency to those "unliberated"
"male-identified" by cultural feminist standards. It can also encourage a dangerously e
attitude among those who consider themselves "woman-identified." For instance,
suggests that heterosexual women are pre-conscious lesbians who should simply "choo
be agents of be-ing":

It is obvious to Hags that few gynecologists recommend to their heterosexual patients the
foolproof of solutions, namely Misterectomy. It is women who choose to be agents of be-ing w
have pointed out that tried and true, and therefore, taboo, "method." The Spinsters who pr
this way by our be-ing, liv-ing, speak-ing can do so with power precisely because we are
preoccupied with ways to get off the hook of the heterosexually defined contraceptive dilemm

By promoting an overdetermined psychological analysis of gender asymmetry, cultu

feminists focus attention away from the structure of male supremacy onto male beh
Thus Robin Morgan contends that "the Man's competitiveness and greed" are respon
for "sexism, racism ... hunger, war and ecological disaster.""5 If the source of the wo
many problems can be traced to the dominance of the male principle, its solution c

10. There are two major feminist anti-pornography organizations. Women Against Violence in Pornog
and Media (WAVPM), a Bay Area group, was formed in 1976 and Women Against Pornography (WAP), a
York group, was established in 1979. Since the two groups take essentially the same position on pornogr
will refer onvly to WAP in this paper when discussing the organized anti-pornography movement.
11. Here I am referring to the original Redstockings.
12. Andrea Dworkin, Our Blood (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), p. 111.
13. Daly, Gyn-Ecology, p. 12.
14. Ibid., p. 239.
15. Robin Morgan, Going Too Far (New York: Random House, 1978), p. 93.

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 Cultural Feminism 37

found in the reassertion

feminists reduce women a
than in their character
sexuality as muted and
correctly advised her to
me and one thing led to
able to control himself.
stop. I would no longer
responsibility to tame a
sexuality.
Even more troubling than this attachment to traditional stereotypes of masculinity and
femininity, is the growing tendency among some cultural feminists to invoke biological
explanations of gender differences. The energy which radical feminists devoted to refuting
biological justifications of gender hierarchy makes this fascination with biological determin-
ism especially distressing. These cultural feminists generally attribute patriarchy either to
the rapaciousness or barrenness of male biology. Thus Susan Brownmiller argues that rape is
a function of male biology. For Brownmiller male biology is destiny: "By anatomical fiat-
the inescapable construction of their genital organs-the human male was a predator and the
human female served as his natural prey.""7 By contrast, Daly argues that the "emptiness"
of male biology explains male dominance. And, as though this proved her point, she cites
arch-conservative George Gilder's view that "while the female body is full of internal

potentiality, the male is internally barren. ... ."' Daly has even suggested that men are
"mutants," who may, like other mutations, "manage to kill themselves off eventually."''
While radical feminists viewed female biology as a liability and thus in some cases
mirrored the culture's devaluation of the female body, cultural feminists have over-reacted
to this earlier position by arguing that female biology is in fact a powerful resource.20
Although Jane Alpert's 1973 article, "Mother-Right," is the earliest articulation of this
position, Adrienne Rich is its most eloquent exponent:

I have come to believe, as will be clear throughout this book, that female biology ... has far more
radical implications than we have yet come to appreciate Patriarchal thought has limited female
biology to its own narrow specifications. The feminist vision has recoiled from female biology for
these reasons; it will, I believe, come to view our physicality as a resource, rather than a destiny. In
order to live a fully human life we require not only control of our bodies . .. we must touch the
unity and resonance of our physicality, our bond with the natural order, the corporeal ground of
our intelligence.'"21

Unlike radical feminists who argued that the identification of women with nature was an
oppressive patriarchal construct, these cultural feminists, especially eco-feminists and paci-

16. Barry, Female Sexual Slavery, p. 218.

17. Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975), p. 16.
18. Daly, Gyn-Ecology, p. 360. For an astute analysis of Gilder, see Michael Walzer, "Gilderism," The New
York Review of Books (April 2, 1981).
19. Quoted in Off Our Backs (OOB) (May 1979).
20. Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex illustrates the radical feminist view of female biology. For the cultural
feminist view, see Rich, Of Woman Born.
21. Rich, Of Woman Born, p. 39.

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38 Echols

fist feminist
natural orde
and ecologica
conditioned f
which they
passivity is
Not all cult
of gender. B
this position
the control o
theories . . .
and to create
Janice Raym
or biological
Radical femi
that individ
benefit ultim
would dimin
identify the
as they iden
oppressor no
on the basis
tions, has be
immutable, t
maleness rat
Similarly, cu
its analysis i
feminists ha
cultural fem
prevents us
In fact, cul
feminism in
Rather than
members of
conversion t
took shape w

22. See Griffin

(January 1981)
23. Morgan, G
24. Anne Koed
25. See Kathle
Chrysalis 1 (1
"Mother-Right
26. Barbara De
27. Rennie and G
that upon Alper

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 Cultural Feminism 39

Cultural feminists vilif

beliefsystem, especially
culture "returns" to fem
hierarchy. In fact, cultur
fallout which will be sw
Cultural feminists belie
demonstrates, not the di
defiled the mother-daug
They further make femin
tation of the mother-daug
mother-daughter relatio
blames the father while e
of male lust and female
daughter bond can rema
acknowledge the extent
Finally, cultural feminis
distinctions. In The Tran
the integration of male
have us believe that all
boundaries of what con
contrast to radical femini
tion of gender, cultural f
of the female principle.
This difference is, of c
envisioned an androgyn
Joreen describes the re

What is disturbing about

qualities traditionally def
arrogant, at times egoisti
"eternal feminine." She disdains the vicarious life deemed natural to women because she wants to
live a life of her own.32

This rather skewed idea of androgyny seems characteristic of those radical feminists who
found "femininity" even less attractive than "masculinity." By contrast cultural feminists
explicitly reject androgyny as a "masculinist" concept and propose the reclamation of a
female principle. Sally Gearhart suggests that: ". . . in the spirituality arena of the women's
movement there is the world's most radical political potential, for in its redemption of female

feminist movement." This prompted 00B reporter, Madeleine Janover to ask with great prescience, "What does
this mean for radical feminism?" See OOB (December, 1974) p. 5.
28. Rich, Of Woman Born; Pauline Bart, review of The Reproduction of Mothering, in OOB (January 1981,
p. 19.
29. Daly, Gvn-Ecology, p. 39.
30. For the cultural feminist view see Florence Rush, The Best Kept Secret (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall,
1980). For an honest, trenchant feminist analysis, see Judith Herman and Lisa Hirschman, "'Father-Daughter
Incest," in Signs (Summer 1978).
31. Raymond, The Transsexual Empire, pp. 109-110.
32. Joreen, "'The Bitch Manifesto," in Koedt, Levine, and Rapone, p. 52.

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 40 Echols

values and
mental fem
Of course,
should be
"maximize
conditione
female bon
repress the
Given stro
into cultur
responsible
for lesbian
forced fem
and, to a l
precluded
choice. Ma
dismissed
tioned that
feminism
tant, becau
lesbianism
many lesb
grounds.
Lesbian recognition was achieved by locating the discussion within the already estab-
lished framework of separatism.36 Lesbian separatists, like the Washington D.C. Furies
collective, argued that heterosexual women were impeding the movement's progress. Rita
Mae Brown opined: "Straight women are confused by men, don't put women first. They
betray lesbians and in its deepest form, they betray their own selves. You can't build a strong
movement if your sisters are out there fucking with the oppressor."37 By defining lesbianism
as a political choice, implying the immutability of gender differences, and promoting a
sentimental view of female sexuality, lesbian-feminists deprived heterosexual feminists of
one of their favorite charges against lesbianism-that it was male-identified.38 However,

33. Sally Gearhart, "The Spiritual Dimension: Death and Resurrection of a Hallelujah Dyke," in Our Right to
Love, ed. Ginny Vida (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1978), p. 192. See also Daly, Gyn-Ecology, p. xi, 387;
Rich, Of Woman Born, pp. 76-77; Raymond, The Transsexual Empire, pp. 154-164. Raymond argues, "andro-
gyny becomes a synonym for an easily accessible human liberation that turns out to be sexual liberation" (p. 162).
34. Ann Snitow, "The Front-Line: Notes on Sex in Novels by Women, 1969-1979," in Women: Sex and
Sexuality, ed. Catharine Stimpson and Ethel Person (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980). p. 174.
35. T. Grace Atkinson, "Lesbianism and Feminism" from Amazon Odyssey (New York: Links Books, 1974),
p. 86.
36. The conviction that feminism is conditional upon separation from men predated lesbian separatism. For
instance, the radical feminist group, The Feminists, established a quota system to limit the number of members
involved in relationships with men.
37. Rita Mae Brown, "The Shape of Things to Come," from Plain Browni Rapper (Baltimore: Diana Press,
1976), p. 114.
38. See Brown, ibid.; Bunch and Myron, eds. Lesbianism and the Women's Movement; Martha Shelley,
"Notes of a Radical Lesbian," in Sisterhood is Powerful, ed. Robin Morgan (New York: Random House, 1970),
p. 309.

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 Cultural Feminism 41

this assumption that re

women are automatical
lesbian sexuality. Furth
commitment to feminis
political," giving it a pres
to judge a woman on the
originate with lesbian sep
Lesbian separatism's op
remain a minority view.
ism has been modified a
audience. Whereas lesbia
advocate separation from
ists encourage woman-b
With the rise of cultur
have become more cordia
suspicion and acrimony
recognition has been ach
cloaking it as female bon
relationships conform to
inists are still made to fe
proximity to contamina
Women Against Pornog
miller a "cocksucker." B
like a man."39
But, with the anti-pornography movement, cultural feminism has succeeded in mobiliz-
ing feminists regardless of sexual preference-not an inconsiderable task. Unfortunately,
anti-pornography activists have united feminists by manipulating women's traditional sexual
conservatism and appealing to widely held assumptions about male and female sexuality. In
advocating a return to a female sexual standard, cultural feminists ignore the extent to which
femaleness functions as the complement to maleness and therefore reflects dominant cultural
assumptions-assumptions which encourage political expediency. By further treating fe-
maleness as an unalloyed force for good, cultural feminists have tried to accommodate
feminism with capitalism and sexual repression. As its brief history demonstrates, cultural
feminism can degenerate into the view, so succinctly articulated by cultural feminist entre-
preneur, Laura Brown, "feminism is anything we say it is."'4

FEMINIST CAPITALISM: THE CASE OF FEN

FEN was the brainchild of the Oakland Feminist Women's Health Center (OFWHC)
the Detroit Feminist Federal Credit Union (DFFCU)-two organizations whose leader
favored hierarchy, centralized decision-making, and capitalist methods.41 Although

39. Susan Chute, "Backroom with the Feminist Heroes: Conference for Women Against Pornogr
Sinister Wisdom (Fall 1980), p. 2.
40. Quoted in Belita Cowan and Cheryl Peck. "The Controversy at FEN," Her-Self (May 1976).
41. My account of FEN has been culled from the following sources: Cowan and Peck, op. cit.; Jackie S
in Big Mama Rag (BMR), v. 4, no. 1; Martha Shelley, "What Is FEN?", circulated by author in fem
communities; Janis Kelly, et al. in Off Our Backs (OOB) (March 1976); Kathy Barry et al. in OOB (January

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 42 Echols

feminists h
were "set u
both group
tions and h
workers and
for pragma
from "impl
they need r
FEN grew o
information
sentatives f
intention of
financial lea
nucleus of
money from
FEN. The pr
two organiz
FEN's first
opulent but
the building
FEN leaders
space" as the
Feminist M
However, c
DFFCU mem
union's solv
hired to ren
asked of th
hiring arme

42. Florence
favorable view
New Woman's
the tinder-boxe
43. In late 197
permission to
the expansion
44. Shelley, i
45. See St. Joan in BMR, v. 4., no. 1.
46. FEN by-laws were reprinted in Cowan and Peck and St. Joan.
47. When the women of OFWHC, DFFCU, and Diana Press realized that their bylaws would be defeated unless
drastically rewritten, they simply walked out of the conference. Two-thirds of the conference participants joined
the Feminist Economic Association (FEA) whose vision was much less grandiose. See St. Joan in BMR.
48. Eight individual women applied for $31,250 each in loans from the DFFCU to circumvent the NCUA's
regulation prohibiting federal credit unions from granting loans to businesses. The eight women then bought the
City Club and assigned their interest in the Club to the FEN corporation. In return they received a promissory note
from FEN.
49. Barry, et al., in 00B (January 1977).

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 Cultural Feminism 43

violence erupted at the C

grand opening. Mounting
September of 1976.
FEN should be seen as th
tion of lesbian-separatis
lesbian separatism's conc
female principle-by def
The theoretical ground
Furies, who were intere
member Rita Mae Brown maintained:

Big is bad. Feminists don't want anything to do with it because women will strangle in frozen
hierarchies .... Perhaps what we don't acknowledge is that big means successful in America.
Many feminists may die before they admit it but they are terrified of success. Failure, in
patriarchal terms, defines women. Success means you're a ballbuster, acting like a man. .. . -
The Furies believed that feminist businesses offered a solution to women's economic
dependence upon men and could dissolve the material barriers to woman-identified con-
sciousness. They argued that feminist businesses were the "wave of the future" which
would both empower the movement and allow feminists to become "full-time revolutionar-
ies."5' It should be noted that Furies' members helped establish Diana Press, Olivia
Records, Quest/a feminist quarterly, and Women in Distribution.
While the Furies had suggested that feminist businesses adhere to the feminist ideals of
collectivity and accountability, the women of FEN openly repudiated these principles. For
instance, Barbara Hoke of the OFWHC and FEN suggested that accountability would be best
understood as a sexist concept rather than a feminist principle: "But think about the sexism
of these kinds of questions that we're being asked. Again, when men set up a business
nobody comes in and asks them, "Where did you get your money?" Why does some woman
who comes to the building demand to know?''52
Of course, it wasn't only FEN's abandonment of collectivity and accountability that
many feminists found distressing. Most critics of FEN questioned its premise that capitalism
is a relatively benign system which could be enlisted in the struggle to defeat patriarchy.
And, as Joanne Parrent's comments indicate, the leadership of FEN justified their actions by
whitewashing capitalism: "I know that people have been saying that they feel that I
shouldn't be on the board of directors [of FEN] and the credit union. I think that's our petty,
small narrow minds as women .... If you look at the male corporate world, you'll see many
men who are on the Board of directors of many corporations and the reason for this is so that
those corporations can work together, so that there's liasons between those corporations. "53
The problem for Parrent was not capitalism, but rather the debilitating influence of female
socialization which encouraged women to think small and remain powerless. The cultural
feminists of FEN attempted to disarm their critics by suggesting that they were intimidated
by the bold and visionary nature of the venture. They maintained the feminist commitment to

50. Rita Mae Brown, "The Lady's Not For Burning," from Plain Brown Rapper, p. 209.
51. Jennifer Woodul, "What's This About Feminist Businesses'?", 00B (June 1976).
52. Quoted in Cowan and Peck, op. cit.
53. Quoted in Cowan and Peck, op. cit.

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 44 Echols

the princip
powerlessne
since "the
avoid the ch
When the
women, the
arrived at
participatio
sounds like
common sen
small narro
process wer
In general,
collectivity
wise, we re
our capitali
immense ch
created.'"6
politics" and
feminism w
FEN leaders attributed their failure to the infiltration of leftist ideas into the women's
movement and its presses.57
How could FEN advocate retaining capitalism while dispensing with democracy? The
cultural feminists of FEN negotiated this rather awesome contradiction by invoking the
power of sisterhood. They maintained that all women share a commonality of interests
which ensure, as Laura Brown stated, that "each time an individual woman gets power, we
all have more power.'"" And Debra Law of the OFWHC and FEN argued that sisterhood is
the foundation of feminism: "I see no arbitrary separation between myself working in a
feminist institution and the community, because I see no separation between my best
interests and any other woman's best interest . ... One of the basic principles of feminism
is that there is a basic commonality between women. It's an extremely important assump-
tion . . . and the only one I can work on."'9 Faith in sisterhood allowed these cultural
feminists to maintain that women could disregard democratic practice and embrace capitalist
methods without exploiting one another.
FEN and WAP represent cultural feminism at different stages in its development. In

54. Barry, et al. in 00B (January 1977). According to Martha Shelley's "What Is FEN?" Nancy Stockwell of
the Bay Area feminist newspaper, Plexus, discovered that although Barry has assumed sole authorship of this
article, it had been a collaborative effort involving Hoke, Parrent, and Brown as well. When Stockwell questioned
Barry about this she maintained that an article favorable to FEN had to "come from a community source" rather
than from within FEN. Plexus refused to publish the piece.
55. Quoted in Cowan and Peck, op. cit.
56. Quoted in Shelley, op. cit., p. 19.
57. Barry et al. remark that "the influence of the Left on women who have been trashing FEN was apparent in
two ... issues of Big Mama Rag," op. cit.
58. Quoted in Cowan and Peck, op. cit.
59. Quoted in St. Joan, op. cit.

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 Cultural Feminism 45

FEN, cultural feminism

FEN promoted an Amaz
And while FEN pursue
ship, exercizes power i
differences FEN and W
feminism.

SEXUAL REPRESSION: THE CASE OF WAP

Take Back the Night, a recent cultural feminist anthology on pornography, opens with
this excerpt of an 1853 letter from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Susan B. Anthony:

Man in his lust has regulated long enough this whole question of sexual intercourse. Now let the
mother of mankind, whose prerogative it is to set the bounds to his indulgence, rouse up and give
this whole matter a thorough, fearless investigation.""

One fears this citation is more appropriate than its anthologizer intended. For despite the fact
that the circumstances confronting today's feminists differ significantly from those faced by
19th century women, the current cultural feminist view of sexuality bears a striking similar-
ity to that articulated by activists a century earlier. For the most part, 19th century feminists,
many of whom were active in the temperance movement, held conservative views on
marriage, the family, and sexuality. They viewed men as dangerously over-sexed violators
of the moral code and women as the chaste regulators of morality.6'
Although radical feminists of the second wave sometimes spoke of sexuality as incom-
patible with feminism, they were far more likely to identify women's subjugation with the
repression of female sexuality."2 They understood that women's sexual inhibition was
related to the lack of accessible and effective contraception which rendered women sexually
vulnerable. They believed that women's attachment to traditional morality stemmed less
from the immutability of female sexuality than from women's socialization and their
economic dependence upon men. This consciousness was reflected in the radical feminist
struggle for abortion and safe, effective contraception. Radical feminists understood, as
does the New Right, that the fight for reproductive rights is the struggle for women's sexual
freedom and self-determination. Of course, radical feminists were by no means uncritical of
the sexual revolution. They acknowledged that the sexual revolution had been more success-
ful in promoting sexual objectification than in validating women's right to sexual pleasure.
However, they remained committed to reconciling sexual liberation with women's liber-
ation. As we shall see, cultural feminists, by contrast, argue that sexual freedom and
feminism are unalterably opposed.
The cultural feminist perspective on sexuality has emerged and crystallized only recently

60. Laura Lederer, Take Back the Night (New York: William Morrow, 1980), p. 21.
61. The temperance movement was by far the more popular of these movements claiming a membership of
245,000 by 1911. Temperance women defined sexuality as a male pursuit and advocated virginity until marriage
and infrequent sexual contact thereafter for both men and women. Women's Christian Temperance Union
president, Frances Willard, was fond of referring to such a lifestyle as "the white life for two." (Barbara Epstein,
paper presented at Organization of American Historians, Spring 1981).
62. For the minority view see Dana Densmore, "On Celibacy," in Voices from Women's Liberation, ed. Leslie
Tanner (New York: New American Library, 1970). For the majority views see Anne Koedt, "The Myth of the
Vaginal Orgasm," in Koedt, et al., op. cit.

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46 Echols

in the dev
pornograph
well. The a
about the d
Brownmil
some form
is reason t
confirmin
alarmed by
cautioned
more on o
Fantasy. W
sexuality an
phy is the
domino th
bly to viol
women to
have "no ch
to Hitler,
More rece
fantasy wh
the "social
mind-body
conflictual
tic analysis
their answ
lives into o
can and sho
banish tho
that fanta
However,
considerab
women's m
patriarcha

63. Quoted i
64. This slog
reprinted in
65. Judith B
66. See Rich's
phy and Silen
see Robert C
67. Penelope

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 Cultural Feminism 47

socialization rather than thei

as confirmation of their fun
Male and Female Sexuality
though they were polar oppo
and potentially lethal. Female
crave power and orgasm, w
claims: k "Every woman here
that of any patriarchally tr
sexuality, objectification, pr
ity was the male style, and
humor, tenderness, commit
not "patriarchally trained."
For cultural feminists, m
described it, "the stuff of m
inextricably linked and find
so convinced that male sexual
and violent expressions. Th
murderousness of male sexu
rape." Liberal and leftist me
interest in pornography. An
said to simply demonstrate m
how contradictory, confirms
hating.
By contrast, women's sexuality is assumed to be more spiritual than sexual, and
considerably less central to their lives than is sexuality to men's. For instance, Adrienne
Rich describes female sexuality as an "energy which is unconfined to any single part of the
body or solely to the body itself.''"' And Ethel Person maintains that "many women have
the capacity to abstain from sex without negative psychological consequences"; women's
more highly developed "capacity for abstinence, repression, or suppression Ihas] adaptive
advantages" over male hypersexuality.73 Person fails to understand that women's apparent
mental health in the face of anorgasmia or abstention testifies to women's conditioning to
subordinate and repress sexual drive. Unfortunately, sexual repression may very well
become adaptive for women once again if the Human Life Amendment and Family Protec-

68. Diana Russell, "Pornography and Violence: What Does the New Research Say?" in Lederer, p. 231. In
Homosexuali,t in Perspective, Masters and Johnson report that in their sample heterosexual men's second most
frequent fantasy was forced sex. And these men fantasized being forced slightly more frequently than they did
forcing another.
69. Morgan, in Going Too Far, p. 181.
70. Dworkin, "Why So-Called Radical Men Love and Need Pornography," in Lederer, p. 152.
71. Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," p. 73. Rich praises Catharine MacKinnon,
author of Sexual Harassment of Working Women for criticizing Brownmiller's "unexamined premise that 'rape is
violence, intercourse is sexuality.'"
72. Rich, ibid., p. 81.
73. Ethel Person, "Sexuality as the Mainstay of Identity: Psychoanalytic Perspectives," in Stimpson and
Person, p. 50; p. 57.

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 48 Echols

tion Act bec

"our society
and its equa
sexual encounters.75
Heterosexuality. It follows from this that cultural feminists would see heterosexuality as
a metaphor for male rapaciousness and female victimization. In contrast to lesbian feminists
for whom heterosexuality generally represented collaboration with the enemy, cultural
feminists appear to take a more sympathetic position towards heterosexual women. They
typically regard female heterosexuality as more apparent than real and maintain that women
are coerced into compliance with heterosexual norms. Adrienne Rich, for instance, cites
Barry's Female Sexual Slavery as evidence that "for women heterosexuality may not be a
'preference' at all but something that has to be imposed, managed, organized, propagan-
dized, and maintained by force."'76Whether female heterosexuality is explained as the result
of coercion, heterosexual privilege, or what Rich terms, women's "double life," the
assumption is that, for women, heterosexuality is neither fully chosen nor really pleasur-
able.77
Concomitantly, cultural feminists believe that any expression of tenderness and affection
between women demonstrates the real tenuousness of heterosexuality for women. They
define lesbianism as identification and bonding with women rather than sexual attraction to
or involvement with women. Thus Rich urges us to view lesbianism as a continuum because
such a model can accommodate "many more forms of primary intensity between and among
women," including the "intimate girl-friendships of eight- or nine-year olds. "7" Rich's
expansive definition of lesbianism completely disregards the attraction of heterosexuality.
Shouldn't any affectional continuum embrace the full range of erotic and sexual tendencies?
Transsexualism. Nowhere is the cultural feminist reduction of male behavior to rapa-
ciousness more inappropriate than when applied to male-to-female transsexuals. The contra-
diction of transsexualism is that it both reinforces and undermines gender as a significant
category. The way in which the medical profession has defined transsexualism has, of
course, contributed to the former development. In The Transsexual Empire, Janice Ray-
mond, without any apparent sense of contradiction, finds transsexualism dangerous because
of both its countervailing tendencies: because it reinforces sex roles and because it destroys
the boundaries between maleness and femaleness. As the book degenerates into an attack on
transsexuals for their "usurpation of female biology" it becomes clear that it is the latter
which she finds most disturbing.79 For cultural feminists who lean towards biological
determinism, transsexuals are indeed very troubling because, on one level, they do under-
mine the salience of gender, and erase the boundaries between the genders.
Raymond argues that "all transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female
form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves."so But cultural feminists' real

74. See Larry Bush and Richard Goldstein, "The Anti-Gray Backlash," Village Voice (April 8-14, 1981);
Deidre English, "The War Against Choice," Mother Jones (February/March 1981).
75. Snitow, ibid., in Stimpson and Person, p. 165.
76. Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality," in Stimpson and Person, p. 79.
77. Ibid., p. 85.
78. Ibid., p. 79, p. 82.
79. Raymond, ibid., p. 31.
80. Ibid., p. 104.

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 Cultural Feminism 49

contempt is reserved fo
presence," according t
dividing us once more f
identify themselves as l
relationships with women
the women's community
to that community bec
play our parts. .. apparen
very often pass as femal
ences" between the be
example of this is the w
around two women, one
cally masculine."84
But, according to Raym
because "he" can seduce
suggests that they could
thus shortcircuit the rev
an extreme example of t
possible to all men rega
Gay Male Sexuality. For
to sexual liberation, the
freedom has simply con
centrality of public and
sexual callousness. They
generational sex demonst
s/m among gay men and
"testimony to the fixed
source of sexual pleasure
cross-generational sex am
Morgan contends that "b
victim seems to invite i
Cultural feminists' host
extensive experience wit
male life and denies part
they frequently engage

81. Quoted in Raymond, p.

82. Ibid.
83. Ibid., p. 103.
84. Ibid., p. 102.
85. Ibid., p. 113.
86. Ibid., p. 105.
87. Dworkin, "Pornography and Grief," in Lederer, p. 289.
88. Jill Clark, "Interview with Robin Morgan," Gay Community News (GCN) (January 20, 1979). See Beth
Kelly, "On Woman/Girl Love---or Lesbians Do 'Do It'" in GCN (March 3, 1979) p. 5, on cross-generational
lesbian relationships.
89. See Karla Jay and Allen Young, The Gay Report (New York: Summit Books, 1979).

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50 Echols

themselves
ships with o
homosexuali
s/m bears l
Unfortunat
"common
feminist vi
which adop
misconstru
issues." The
"exploitatio
sexual pref
tion was in
Lesbian Sex
movement
which one
Lesbian cult
is a "profou
values and
friendship"
larger cult
stresses the
have spent
venereal di

barricades
Even more,
their fear t
lism, and po
suggests th
mutuality a
. . many gay
of each oth
their deman
sion that w
may not of
silly, stupid

90. See Nancy

91. See Edmu
Side of Lesbia
92. Scott Tuc
93. Rich, "Co
94. Daly, Gyn
95. Quoted in
96. Rich, in S
97. Quoted in
98. Brown, P

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Cultural Feminism 51

Lesbian feminists, who

shaped and been shaped
relationships and politic
emphasize sex on ideolog
lence, inevitably degener
pass a political litmus te
lesbian cultural feminist
The enthusiastic partici
rather than the reproduct
sexuality is collusive, b
such a dreadfully hopeles
And the suggestion tha
lest they "seduce" us bac
feminists.
Sexual Permissiveness. F
apparent increase in rap
testify to the evils of sex
the traditional boundary s
phy has contributed to a
vestige of (even corrupt
However, the real culpr
pornography. Cultural fe
sexual exploitation.""'2 T
revolution which allowe
images over real people,
"mechanical and patriarc
like Phyllis Schlafly, m
problems arose as they es
depersonalize their sexu
discouraging intimacy by
own needs. 05 They furth
into political apathy and
"pluralistic notion of cul
"sexual perversion."''07

99. Diana Russell and other ant

in an attempt to combat the e
100. Some lesbian cultural femi
are "victories in a vacuum [bec
"Lesbians/Spinsters have no n
101. Morgan, "Theory and P
102. Rush, op. cit., p. 192.
103. Rich, Of Woman Born,
104. Barry, Female Sexual Sl
105. Ibid., pp. 223-226; Raym
106. Person, in Stimpson and
p. 202; Rush, op. cit., pp. 19
107. Barry, Female Sexual Sl

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 52 Echols

This analysis
us back into
equation of
fact, already
rights. The c
movement w
the enemy,
women's mov
familial orie
movement.'o
Respect and Repression. Because the sexual revolution is seen as enslaving women by
promoting the male sexual values of promiscuity and rapacity, cultural feminists propose the
establishment of a female standard of sexuality. Their alternative to the sexual revolution lies
in the resurrection of so-called female principles. Thus Barry suggests: "In going into new
sexual values we are really going back to the values women have always attached to
sexuality, values that have been robbed from us, distorted as we have been colonized
through both sexual violence and so-called sexual liberation."''9 Cultural feminists advo-
cate a "return" to maternal values through the establishment of maternal authority. Thus
Morgan reflects: "Today, I can affirm my mother and identify with her beyond all my
intricate ambivalence. I can confront ersatz "sexual liberation" and its pornographic mani-
festos for what they are--degrading sexist propaganda." Io
The cultural feminist solution to male lasciviousness is the re-establishment of old-
fashioned respect which the sexual revolution has destroyed. This analysis confuses respect
for equality and fails to recognize that respect is merely the flip side of violation. More
importantly, this view suggests that sexual repression is a satisfactory solution to the real
problem of violence against women. Diana Russell has admitted that censorship will not
prevent the emergence of a blackmarket in pornography. However, she reasons that it is
better "to have it underground than to see it flourish as an accepted part of our culture." II
Why does the leadership of the anti-pornography movement, while recognizing it cannot
eliminate pornography, continue to define it as the feminist issue? On one level the anti-
pornography movement represents a highly pragmatic attempt to unify a movement which
has been seriously divided by the issues of class, race, and sexual preference. The cultural
feminists of WAP appeal to women's sense of sexual vulnerability and the resilience of
gender stereotypes in their struggle to organize all women into a grand and virtuous
sisterhood to combat male lasciviousness. Thus, when Bat-Ada argues that to fight pornog-
raphy "a coalition of all women needs to be established, regardless of race, color, creed,
religion, or political persuasion" [emphasis mine], she abandons feminism for female moral
outrage.112 On a less obvious level, this movement's belief in men's utter depravity suggests
that it is concerned with something more than the reformation of male sexuality. To a great

108. See Willis, Beginning To See The Light for a good analysis of the relationship between feminism and
individualism.
109. Barry, Female Sexual Slavery, p. 227.
110. Morgan, Going Too Far, p. 16.
111. Russell and Lederer, "Questions We Get Asked Most Often," in Lederer, p. 29.
112. Bat-Ada, op. cit. in Lederer, p. 132.

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 Cultural Feminism 53

extent, the movement's me

attempts not only to contr
as well. It has become a veh
to diminish the likelihood
heterosexuality or s/m. M
feminist equivalent to the
traditional sexual conserv
culture's victims and its m

CONCLUSION-THE RETREAT FROM THEORY INTO FANTASY

By equating feminism with the "reassertion" of a female principle, cultural femin

seems to promise an immediate solution to women's powerlessness within the cultur
large. More specifically, the rise of cultural feminism is attributable to the frustrat
fragmentation of the women's movement and the erosion of feminist gains in the recent
Cultural feminism substitutes the fantasy of the united sisterhood for political theory.
FEN's attempt to wed feminism with capitalism and WAP's efforts to regulate sexua
grow out of the cultural feminist faith in women's superiority and commonality. This fan
of female superiority and solidarity seems to promote political expediency. Furthermore
rhetoric of sisterhood favored by the feminists of FEN and now WAP tends to obscure
fundamental expedience.
Unfortunately, it seems that some feminists and leftists have abandoned transforma
politics for the familiarity of sexual repression and the nuclear family respectively.
instance, Tom Hayden claims that liberalism failed because it "lost God, the flag, nati
defense, tax relief, personal safety and traditional family values to conservatives." 4
Michael Lerner suggests that Americans could be sold on socialism were they to under
its salutory impact upon family life."'
The years ahead promise to be turbulent at the very least. As the Reagan administrat
dismantles the welfare state, many people will feel the full brutality of capitalism unm
ated by many of the social programs which have humanized it to some small extent
conservative solution to the social unrest which will undoubtedly accompany this adm
tration's economic policies will probably be more political repression. It would be m
unfortunate if feminists respond to the likely inhospitality of the 1980s by further retre
into this fantasy of a morally pure sisterhood. Ultimately, cultural feminism offers us
more than the illusion of power and will fail us very badly in the difficult period befor

113. See Deidre English, op. cit., for a insightful analysis of the anti-abortion movement.
114. Tom Hayden, "The Future Politics of Liberalism," in The Nation (February 21, 1981), p. 209.
115. Michael Lerner, "Recapturing the Family Issue," in The Nation (February 2, 1982). For a pithy resp
to Lerner, see Barbara Ehrenreich, "Family Feud on the Left," The Nation (March 13, 1982).

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