In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Women We Love: Sandra Fluke

Jill

She is just so excellent.

When did you first start to advocate for women’s issues?
In college, actually. I grew up in a rural farming community in central Pennsylvania. My father is a pastor now, and we have always been a very observant, conservative Christian family. My first semester, I signed up for a women’s studies course because I wanted to see what all this ruckus was about. I was going to show them that I didn’t really believe in these things, but I was just completely blown over.

What did your parents say when you shared these new ideas with them?
“Oh, my gosh, we’re paying a lot of tuition for this.”

If issues like abortion access and reproductive health are so important to you, why did you choose to go to law school at Georgetown, a Jesuit university?
You’re saying I should have read the admissions literature more closely? I made the choice to go to Georgetown based on the factors that most students take into account. They offered me a scholarship, and they have the best public-interest law program that I saw, and they have some really fabulous faculty around feminist jurisprudence. It’s unfortunate that women have to choose between comprehensive affordable health care and the best quality education they can have.

14 thoughts on Women We Love: Sandra Fluke

  1. Congratulations on finding a position that Rick Santorum and I agree upon. I do think there’s a serious problem with the violence we see in some pornography, and it has severe consequences for sexual-assault rates.

    She sounds wildly off base here. Perhaps the Rick Santorum part should have been her first clue…

  3. Santorum isn’t against pornography because he cares about women, he’s against pornography because he hates sex.

    And I’m an anti-pornography feminist. No way I’d ever believe he’s on my side.

  4. idk how violent porn and snuff films (against women, to clarify) actually affect sexual assault rates, but I do consider them hate speech against women and wish the US would outlaw the slasher porn like Canada did (source?)

  5. Michelle, I wouldn’t be so quick to wish for the adoption of Canada’s anti-pornography laws. Canadian authorities have a history of using them to target LGBTQ rather than misogynist materials. I hardly think US officials could be expected to take a more feminist approach to enforcement.

    Also, it’s never been demonstrated that a genre of “snuff films” really exists. And in any case there are already laws against them seeing as murder itself is illegal.

  6. Haha, Wendy, have we both read ‘Bound and Gagged’ by Laura Kipnis?

    But yeah, I came here to say what everyone else is saying, really – I wasn’t that impressed by her porn answer. People who criticise “the violence we see in some pornography” often just don’t seem to understand kink, for instance – which I’m not saying is the case here, but I don’t see any evidence that it’s not the case, either. And there isn’t a linked rise in sexual violence. That’s just not a thing. It’s a zombie stat.

    Also, the whole, “I’ll let you know if I find any [feminist porn]” makes me go a bit *face palm*. It is seriously not that difficult to find – literally off the top of my head (so apologies for spelling mistakes, because I’m not googling their names) – there’s Jizz Lee, Courtney Trouble, NoFauxxx, Pink & White, Anna Span, Mia Engberg … okay, I’m kind of invested in feminist stuff that happens in the sex industry. But Sandra Fluke – excellent as she is – just doesn’t seem to know very much about the issue, and maybe acknowledging that would be a more respectable reply than merely going through the standard feminist-sounding platitudes.

    Honestly though, I do think she’s great. Obviously!

  7. @Glasgow sex worker

    Thanks for the suggestions! I actually haven’t heard of those names before.

    I certainly don’t believe that banning porn will stop sexual violence or degradation of women. I do agree that porn does affect the way youngsters may view sex or what they can expect from it, but that’s where talking about it comes in handy. As the attitude on women changes for the better (finger’s crossed) the porn will change, too. Also, we still need more women producing porn and more women admitting to watching porn to accelerate the changes.

  8. Sex columnist Dan Savage does a takedown on the fallacy of the “link between sexual assault and porn” stuff Sandra Fluke said:

    http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/06/26/falling-out-of-love-with-sandra-fluke

    Basically,

    Nevertheless, the trends “just don’t fit with the theory that rape and sexual assault are in part influenced by pornography,” Ferguson explains. “At this point I think we can say the evidence just isn’t there, and it is time to retire this belief.”

  9. Yeah, I totally get being offended by porn that is nasty to women. Choking, stuff like that. I get that. But I don’t see any reason to assume that it results in sexual assault. It might, maybe, contribue to general contempt of women, but even there I dunno.

    A thing can be bad without being a gateway to other bad things.

  10. Choking, stuff like that. I get that.

    Oddly, I find choking to be a turn off. Maybe because of my combat training. But I have had three girlfriends who were incredibly turned on by it. One recently sent me a porno video that she thought was hot because the women were being choked in it. Limiting oxygen to the brain can increase arousal, which is the reason they’re into it… not because, as in my combat training, the choking had something to do with killing the other person.

  11. Interesting how quickly certain people were diverted by the porn question and immediately raced to its defense. I really don’t know what’s right and true or wrong and false about the porn industry. Some things seem OK, but there’s much that seems creepy (and I believe every woman and girl should trust the creep factor). So, when I see people instantly rush to the defense of porn–they’ve already determined it’s perfectly great and acceptable, no downside whatever–flags go up.

    But that’s a side point. I was originally going to comment that I too love Sandra!

  12. @ Codi

    “Interesting how quickly certain people were diverted by the porn question and immediately raced to its defense.”

    Well, it’s a short interview, and that’s the only thing she says that I disagree with. So – just speaking for myself – what you’re saying … isn’t really the case? Unless you think “reading a short interview on the internet and then commenting on the bit that provokes you” is somehow suspicious or telling.

    “So, when I see people instantly rush to the defense of porn–they’ve already determined it’s perfectly great and acceptable, no downside whatever–flags go up.”

    Having an established opinion invalidates that opinion? This may surprise you, but this is not the absolute first time I’ve encountered a discussion along these lines. So no, I’ve not built my entire opinion from the ground-up today. Because my opinion is not like a premium sandwich, however, I don’t consider that to be a huge problem. Since when did “having read about an issue before” become a downside?

    Also, what you’ve said is a huge straw-man: no one here has said that “porn is perfectly great … no downsides whatsoever”. Absolutely no one has said anything like that – we’ve had a variety of somewhat anti-porn opinions (3, 4, 9), some people being uncomfortable with censorship, some people critiquing her stats, and a couple of opinions along the lines of “young people’s expectations” + “X Y Z doesn’t turn me on but it turns on other people”. Where are you getting this “no downsides at all” thing from? The only person leaping *tellingly* to an opinion is you.

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