It’s a good summary of the past 40 years in feminism, with an emphasis on the 2010s, which is great.
In the quest to the answer for a better world between women and men, Amia Shrinivasan asks good questions and covers it all. I’m trying to write about answers here.
First of all, I think it’s important to understand that the systems in place ruining our lives are not going to be cut off clean; we need to think about them as fading out, as hard and as fast as we work on them to be part of the past. So it’s fluctuating and moving. Regressing and expanding.
The assumption that we can flip a switch in society by passing laws and calling it a day, is an illusion. Or that we can convince people profiting from those systems. Not happening either.
Second, I think it’s fundamental that we acknowledge that by default, women and men are the same, require the same care, love, respect, discipline and so forth, to be good human beings and stay that way. Women and men created what we have. There is no domination or submission at the individual level, unless it’s a game between adults, which is then not reality: it is a sandboxed game.
TL;DR: Systems are moving slowly and are hard to predict; individuals, —straight/LGBTQ+— are the same basic atoms, requiring the same basic needs and are quite predictable. Therefore,
Sex Ed and porn
As Amia writes about it, obviously we need better sex education and yes, porn is and will be around. What can we do? Be as honest as possible. One way would be to ensure teenagers have safe sex so that their brains can move on. The weird abstinence happening in porn-fueled America for folks 15-30 is so destructive. For sex not to be special, it needs to be treated as such. If sex is simply part of life, why not treat it like it is? Masturbation (still so taboo for women in the public sphere!) should be taught like a necessity, just like brushing your teeth. Encouraging young men to understand that sex is teamwork —a lot of listening— would do wonder. I know plenty of young men know all that but then, peer-pressure from older ideologies and stuff. Be you, bro. Sex is public health, but also a private act. You don’t have to brag about it or make it a list of things that needs to be done. Relax, and work on your skills. Sex is awesome and nothing at the same time. It is a paradox.
On porn, we adults could suggest teenagers to watch amateur acts, to make them more accustomed to what real sex is. To separate theater and reality. To push them to use their imagination, too. Imagination is still super powerful because it stimulates desire, real, personal desire. Maybe it doesn’t exist anymore in kids minds these days.
Solution: UBI. This way teenagers know –as well as adults- that they will not jeopardize their future by exploring intimacy. They might have sex early which would avoid the resentment, loneliness and subscribing-to-wrong ideas phases, especially for young men. Which would be dramatically great.
Sex
Amia writes: “Sex is no longer morally problematic or unproblematic: it is instead merely wanted or unwanted. In this sense, the norms of sex are like the norms of capitalist free exchange.”
I truly disagree here. if sex is wanted, it is simply a union. There’s no commerce in intimacy. It is not a transaction like capitalist free exchange. Which is by the way, not free: it is interested. “Free” exchange in capitalist terms really means “getting as much as you can for the least effort”. It’s min-max to oblivion. Yeah, that’s an atrocious mindset for relationships. We can see that in dating apps Reddit subs: people, mostly men, treat sex like a goddamn stock investment. It’s horrible.
It’s fundamental to not treat sex as a transactional commodity. Yes, it happens in our capitalist and very unfair society, but it certainly shouldn’t be normalized, nor needs to be reprimanded. For women and men to feel liberated about this, we need to treat sex as anything but a transaction. Because when we do, we create markets, competition, cheating, resentment, abuse and so forth. Which kill women in a myriad of ways.
Solution: UBI so that everyone lives their lives without using sex as a capitalistic mechanism to achieve higher status, not even a little bit.
Masculinity
If today’s masculinity is about big numbers, —bodies, money— then it is a rather weak and dumb concept. Masculinity is the ability to be the best man you can be, to me. That is, it is a very broad concept, depending on context and culture. But it always rests on solid foundations: be good, be efficient, always learn.
Since the 2010s though, it seems like many men feel like learning to unlearn stuff is anti-men or something. Being able to change your mind on a crucial topic means you’re “giving up”? On what, your bruised feelings? There’s so much war narratives in men circles. Zero sum logic. We really need to step away from this, but mfs enjoy those stories.
Solution: UBI so that all men chill at home, learning and doing better, without the stress of bragging rights that no one cares about, really.
Marriage
How in *checks notes* 2022 we still use it as a stick to measure one’s relationship achievement makes me shake my head. But for taxes purposes, vague religious nostalgia of simpler times and the desire to treat yourself with a wedding, marriages are still a thing. Which so often creates imbalance in relationships, punishing women and men. Because the entire society and state are involved in it, the consequences are pretty big when shit hits the fan.
Solution: UBI so that people get into unions like marriage without a heavy chip on their shoulder. Also, a new social contract between people, like in France, would allow Americans to be in relationship with a contract that allows fairness when it comes down to assets, shared items and will, which is what really matters.
So yeah, an absolute necessity for better men and women relationships is for all of us to decouple the risks associated to partnering up with someone. UBI is the best tool to create personal and collective agency! We need to significantly decrease our collective anxiety towards intimacy and relationships. It’s easy to do, in a way: we just need to be pragmatic and give society ways for its individuals to move around, without being stuck by some stupid historic and politic fact, irrelevant to how we live in the current moment and even more for the future. Especially when sex is, for the most part, an intimate, private thing.
We are not free yet. But we know how to be.